UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 


WILLIAM  OILMAN  THOMPSON. 


ENGLISH    TRAITS. 


ENGLISH    TRAITS. 


R.    W.    EMERSON 


SEVENTH    THOUSAND. 


BOSTON: 

PHILLIPS,   SAMPSON,   AND    COMPANY. 
1857. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  Year  1856,  by 

R.  W.   EMERSON, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Coiyt  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts, 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    1. 
FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND, 


CHAPTER    II. 
VOYAGE  TO  ENGLAND, 31 

CHAPTER    III. 
LAND, 40 

CHAPTER    IV. 
RACE 50 

CHAPTER    V. 
ABILITY, 79 

CHAPTER    VI. 

"MANNERS, 106 

1*  (5) 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER    VII. 
TRUTH, 119 

CHAPTER    VIII. 
CHARACTER, 130 

CHAPTER    IX. 
COCKAYNE, 146 

CHAPTER    X. 
WEALTH, 156 

» 

CHAPTER    XI. 
ARISTOCRACY, 174 

CHAPTER    XII. 
UNIVERSITIES, 200 

CHAPTER    XIII. 
RELIGION, 215 

CHAPTER    XIV. 
LITERATURE, 232 

CHAPTER    XV. 
THE  "TiMES,"  .  , 260 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 
STONEHENGE, 272 

CHAPTER    XVII. 
PERSONAL, 290 

CHAPTER    XVIII. 
RESULT, 296 

CHAPTER    XIX. 
SPEECH  AT  MANCHESTER, 307 


V 


ENGLISH   TRAITS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

FIRST  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND. 

I  HAVE  been  twice  in  England.  In  1833,  on 
my  return  from  a  short  tour  in  Sicily,  Italy,  and 
France,  I  crossed  from  Boulogne,  and  landed  in 
London  at  the  Tower  stairs.  It  was  a  dark  Sun 
day  morning ;  there  were  few  people  in  the  streets ; 
and  I  remember  the  pleasure  of  that  first  walk  on 
English  ground,  with  my  companion,  an  American 
artist,  from  the  Tower  up  through  Cheapside  and 
the  Strand,  to  a  house  in  Russell  Square,  whither 
we  had  been  recommended  to  good  chambers.  For 
the  first  time  for  many  months  we  were  forced  to 
check  the  saucy  habit  of  travellers'  criticism,  as  we 
could  no  longer  speak  aloud  in  the  streets  without 
being  understood.  The  shop-signs  spoke  our  lan 
guage  ;  our  country  names  were  on  the  door-plates ; 

(9) 


10  ENGLISH   TR4ITS. 

and  the  public  and  private  buildings  wore  a  more 
native  and  wonted  front. 

Like  most  young  men  at  that  time,  I  was  much 
indebted  to  the  men  of  Edinburgh,  and  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  —  to  Jeffrey,  Mackintosh,  Hal- 
lam,  and  to  Scott,  Playfair,  and  De  Quincey ;  and 
my  narrow  and  desultory  reading  had  inspired  the 
wish  to  see  the  faces  of  three  or  four  writers,  — 
Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Landor,  De  Quincey,  and 
the  latest  and  strongest  contributor  to  the  critical 
journals,  Carlyle ;  and  I  suppose  if  I  had  sifted 
the  reasons  that  led  me  to  Europe,  when  I  was  ill 
and  was  advised  to  travel,  it  was  mainly  the  attrac 
tion  of  these  persons.  If  Goethe  had  been  still 
living,  I  might  have  wandered  into  Germany  also. 
Besides  those  I  have  named,  (for  Scott  was  dead,) 
there  was  not  in  Britain  the  man  living  whom 
I  cared  to  behold,  unless  it  were  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  whom  I  afterwards  saw  at  Westmin 
ster  Abbey,  at  the  funeral  of  Wilberforce.  The 
young  scholar  fancies  it  happiness  enough  to  live 
with  people  who  can  give  an  inside  to  the  world ; 
without  reflecting  that  they  are  prisoners,  too,  of 
their  own  thought,  and  cannot  apply  themselves  to 
yours.  The  conditions  of  literary  success  are  al 
most  destructive  of  the  best  social  power,  as  they 
do  not  leave  that  frolic  liberty  which  only  can 


FIRST   VISIT   TO    ENGLAND.  11 

encounter  a  companion  on  the  best  terms.  It  is 
probable  you  left  some  obscure  comrade  at  a 
tavern,  or  in  the  farms,  with  right  mother-wit, 
and  equality  to  life,  when  you  crossed  sea  and  land 
to  play  bo-peep  with  celebrated  scribes.  I  have, 
however,  found  writers  superior  to  their  books, 
and  I  cling  to  my  first  belief,  that  a  strong  head 
will  dispose  fast  enough  of  these  impediments,  and 
give  one  the  satisfaction  of  reality,  the  sense  of 
having  been  met,  and  a  larger  horizon. 

On  looking  over  the  diary  of  my  journey  in 
1833,  I  find  nothing  to  publish  in  my  memoran 
da  of  visits  to  places.  But  I  have  copied  the 
few  notes  I  made  of  visits  to  persons,  as  they  re 
spect  parties  quite  too  good  and  too  transparent  to 
the  whole  world  to  make  it  needful  to  affect  any 
prudery  of  suppression  about  a  few  hints  of  those 
bright  personalities. 

At  Florence,  chief  among  artists  I  found  Ho 
ratio  Greenough,  the  American  sculptor.  His  face 
was  so  handsome,  and  his  person  so  well  formed, 
that  he  might  be  pardoned,  if,  as  was  alleged,  the 
face  of  his  Medora,  and  the  figure  of  a  colossal 
Achilles  in  clay,  were  idealizations  of  his  own. 
Greenough  was  a  superior  man,  ardent  and  elo 
quent,  and  all  his  opinions  had  elevation  and 
magnanimity.  He  believed  that  the  Greeks  had 


12  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

wrought  in  schools  or  fraternities,  —  the  genius  of 
the  master  imparting  his  design  to  his  friends,  and 
inflaming  them  with  it,  and  when  his  strength 
was  spent,  a  new  hand,  with  equal  heat,  continued 
the  work ;  and  so  by  relays,  until  it  was  finished 
in  every  part  with  equal  fire.  This  was  necessary 
in  so  refractory  a  material  as  stone  ;  and  he  thought 
art  would  never  prosper  until  we  left  our  shy  jeal 
ous  ways,  and  worked  in  society  as  they.  All  his 
thoughts  breathed  the  same  generosity.  He  was 
an  accurate  and  a  deep  man.  He  was  a  votary  of 
the  Greeks,  and  impatient  of  Gothic  art.  His  pa 
per  on  Architecture,  published  in  1843,  announced 
in  advance  the  leading  thoughts  of  Mr.  Ruskin  on 
the  morality  in  architecture,  notwithstanding  the 
antagonism  in  their  views  of  the  history  of  art. 
I  have  a  private  letter  from  him,  —  later,  but  re 
specting  the  same  period,  —  in  which  he  roughly 
sketches  his  own  theory.  "  Here  is  my  theory  of 
structure  :  A  scientific  arrangement  of  spaces  and 
forms  to  functions  and  to  site ;  an  emphasis  of  fea 
tures  proportioned  to  their  gradated  importance  in 
function ;  color  and  ornament  to  be  decided  and  ar 
ranged  and  varied  by  strictly  organic  laws,  having 
a  distinct  reason  for  each  decision ;  the  entire  and 
immediate  banishment  of  all  make-shift  and  make- 
believe." 


FIRST   VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  13 

Greenough  brought  me,  through  a  common 
friend,  an.  invitation  from  Mr.  Landor,  who  lived 
at  San  Domenica  di  Fiesole.  On  the  15th  May 
I  dined  with  Mr.  Landor.  I  found  him  noble 
and  courteous,  living  in  a  cloud  of  pictures  at  his 
Villa  Gherardesca,  a  fine  house  commanding  a 
beautiful  landscape.  I  had  inferred  from  his 
books,  or  magnified  from  some  anecdotes,  an  im 
pression  of  Achillean  wrath,  —  an  untamable  petu 
lance.  ,  I  do  not  know  whether  the  imputation 
were  just  or  not,  but  certainly  on  this  May  day 
his  courtesy  veiled  that  haughty  mind,  and  he  was 
the  most  patient  and  gentle  of  hosts.  He  praised 
the  beautiful  cyclamen  which  grows  all  about 
Florence  ;  he  admired  Washington  ;  talked  of 
Wordsworth,  Byron,  Massinger,  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher.  To  be  sure,  he  is  decided  in  his 
opinions,  likes  to  surprise,  and  is  well  content  to 
impress,  if  possible,  his  English  whim  upon  the 
immutable  past.  No  great  man  ever  had  a  great 
son,  if  Philip  and  Alexander  be  not  an  exception  ; 
and  Philip  he  calls  the  greater  man.  In  art,  he 
loves  the  Greeks,  and  in  sculpture,  them  only. 
He  prefers  the  Venus  to  every  thing  else,  and, 
after  that,  the  head  of  Alexander,  in  the  gallery 
here.  He  prefers  John  of  Bologna  to  Michael 
Angelo  ;  in  painting,  Raffaelle ;  and  shares  the 


14  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

growing  taste  for  Perugino  and  the  early  masters. 
The  Greek  histories  he  thought  the  only  good ; 
and  after  them,  Voltaire's.  I  could  not  make  him 
praise  Mackintosh,  nor  my  more  recent  friends  ; 
Montaigne  very  cordially,  —  and  Charron  also, 
which  seemed  undiscriminating.  He  thought 
Degerando  indebted  to  "  Lucas  on  Happiness  " 
and  "  Lucas  on  Holiness  "  !  He  pestered  me 
with  Southey  ;  but  who  is  Southey  ? 

He  invited  me  to  breakfast  on  Friday.  On 
Friday  I  did  not  fail  to  go,  and  this  time  with 
Greenough.  He  entertained  us  at  once  with  re 
citing  half  a  dozen  hexameter  lines  of  Julius 
Caesar's  !  —  from  Donatus,  he  said.  He  glorified 
Lord  Chesterfield  more  than  was  necessary,  and 
undervalued  Burke,  and  undervalued  Socrates ; 
designated  as  three  of  the  greatest  of  men,  Wash 
ington,  Phocion,  and  Timoleon;  much  as  our 
pomologists,  in  their  lists,  select  the  three  or  the 
six  best  pears  "  for  a  small  orchard  ;  "  and  did  not 
even  omit  to  remark  the  similar  termination  of 
their  names.  •"  A  great  man,"  he  said,  "  should 
make  great  sacrifices,  and  kill  his  hundred  oxen, 
without  knowing  whether  they  would  be  con 
sumed  by  gods  and  heroes,  or  whether  the  flies 
would  eat  them."  I  had  visited  Professor 
Amici,  who  had  shown  me  his  microscopes, 
magnifying  (it  was  said)  two  thousand  di- 


FIRST    VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  15 

ameters ;  and  I  spoke  of  the  uses  to  which  they 
were  applied.  Landor  despised  entomology,  yet, 
in  the  same  breath,  said,  "  the  sublime  was  in  a 
grain  of  dust."  I  suppose  I  teased  him  about 
recent  writers,  but  he  professed  never  to  have 
heard  of  Herschel,  not  even  by  name.  One  room 
was  full  of  pictures,  which  he  likes  to  show,  es 
pecially  one  piece,  standing  before  which,  he  said 
"  he  would  give  fifty  guineas  to  the  man  that 
would  swear  it  was  a  Domenichino."  I  was  more 

curious  to  see  his  library,  but  Mr.  H ,  one  of 

the  guests,  told  me  that  Mr.  Landor  gives  away 
his  books,  and  has  never  more  than  a  dozen  at  a 
time  in  his  house. 

Mr.  Landor  carries  to  its  height  the  love  of 
freak  which  the  English  delight  to  indulge,  as  if 
to  signalize  their  commanding  freedom.  He  has 
a  wonderful  brain,  despotic,  violent,  and  inex 
haustible,  meant  for  a  soldier,  by  what  chance 
converted  to  letters,  in  which  there  is  not  a  style 
nor  a  tint  not  known  to  him,  yet  with  an  English 
appetite  for  action  and  heroes.  The  thing  done 
avails,  and  not  what  is  said  about  it.  An  original 
sentence,  a  step  forward,  is  worth  more  than  all 
the  censures.  Landor  is  strangely  undervalued  in 
England;  usually  ignored;  and  sometimes  savage 
ly  attacked  in  the  Reviews.  The  criticism  may 


16  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

be  right,  or  wrong,  and  is  quickly  forgotten  ;  but 
year  after  year  the  scholar  must  still  go  back  to 
Landor  for  a  multitude  of  elegant  sentences  —  for 
wisdom,  wit,  and  indignation  that  are  unforgetable. 


From  London,  on  the  5th  August,  I  went  to  High- 
gate,  and  wrote  a  note  to  Mr.  Coleridge,  requesting 
leave  to  pay  my  respects  to  him.  It  was  near  noon. 
Mr.  Coleridge  sent  a  verbal  message,  that  he  was  in 
bed,  but  if  I  would  call  after  one  o'clock,  he  would 
see  me.  I  returned  at  one,  and  he  appeared,  a 
short,  thick  old  man,  with  bright  blue  eyes  and 
fine  clear  complexion,  leaning  on  his  cane.  He 
took  snuff  freely,  which  presently  soiled  his  cravat 
and  neat  black  suit.  He  asked  whether  I  knew 
Allston,  and  spoke  warmly  of  his  merits  and  do 
ings  when  he  knew  him  in  Rome  ;  what  a  master 
of  the  Titianesque  he  was,  &c,,  &c.  He  spoke  of 
Dr.  Channing.  It  was  an  unspeakable  misfortune 
that  he  should  have  turned  out  a  Unitarian  after 
all.  On  this,  he  burst  into  a  declamation  on  the 
folly  and  ignorance  of  Unitarianism,  —  its  high  un 
reasonableness  ;  and  taking  up  Bishop  Waterland's 
book,  which  lay  on  the  table,  he  read  with  vehe 
mence  two  or  three  pages  written  by  himself  in 
the  fly-leaves,  —  passages,  too,  which,  I  believe,  are 


FIRST    VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  17 

printed  in  the  "Aids  to  Reflection."  When  he 
stopped  to  take  breath,  I  interposed,  that,  ' f  whilst 
I  highly  valued  all  his  explanations,  I  was  hound 
to  tell  him  that  I  was  born  and  bred  a  Unitarian." 
"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  supposed  so  ;  "  and  continued 
as  before.  '  It  was  a  wonder,  that  after  so  many 
(  ages  of  unquestioning  acquiescence  in  the  doc- 
'  trine  of  St.  Paul,  —  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
'  which  was  also,  according  to  Philo  Juda3us,  the 

*  doctrine  of  the  Jews  before  Christ,  —  this  handful 
(  of  Priestleians  should  take  on  themselves  to  deny 
'  it,  &c.,  &c.     He  was  very  sorry  that  Dr.  Chan- 
'  ning,  —  a  man  to  whom  he  looked  up,  —  no,  to 
'  say  that  he  looked  up  to  him  would  be  to  speak 

*  falsely;  but  a  man  whom  he  looked  at  with  so  much 
'  interest,  —  should  embrace  such  views.    When  he 
'  saw  Dr.  Channing,  he  had  hinted  to  him  that  he 
f  was  afraid  he  loved  Christianity  for  what  was  lovely 
'  and  excellent,  —  he  loved  the  good  in  it,  and  not 
f  the  true ;  and  I  tell  you,  sir,  that  I  have  known 
'ten  persons  who  loved  the  good,  for  one  person 
s  who  loved  the  true  ;  but  it  is  a  far  greater  virtue 
f  to  love  the  true  for  itself  alone,  than  to  love  the 
'good  for  itself  alone.     He  (Coleridge)  knew  all 
1  about  Unitarianism  perfectly  well,  because  he  had 
(  once  been  a  Unitarian,  and  knew  what  quackery 
'  it  was.     He  had  been  called  "  the  rising  star  of 


18  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

'  Unitarianism." :  He  went  on  defining,  or  rather 
refining  :  '  The  Trinitarian  doctrine  was  realism  ; 
'the  idea  of  God  was  not  essential,  but  super- 
*  essential ; '  talked  of  trinism  and  tetrakism,  and 
much  more,  of  which  I  only  caught  this,  'that 
f  the  will  was  that  by  which  a  person  is  a  person ; 
'because,  if  one  should  push  me  in  the  street, 
'  and  so  I  should  force  the  man  next  me  into  the 
'  kennel,  I  should  at  once  exclaim,  "  I  did  not  do 
'it,  sir,"  meaning  it  was  not  my  will.'  And  this 
also,  '  that  if  you  should  insist  on  your  faith  here 
'  in  England,  and  I  on  mine,  mine  would  be  the 
'hotter  side  of  the  fagot.' 

I  took  advantage  of  a  pause  to  say,  that  he  had 
many  readers  of  all  religious  opinions  in  America, 
and  I  proceeded  to  inquire  if  the  "  extract "  from 
the  Independent's  pamphlet,  in  the  third  volume 
of  the  Friend,  were  a  veritable  quotation.  He  re 
plied,  that  it  was  really  taken  from  a  pamphlet  in 
his  possession,  entitled  "A  Protest  of  one  of  the 
Independents,"  or  something  to  that  effect.  I  told 
him  how  excellent  I  thought  it,  and  how  much  I 
wished  to  see  the  entire  work.  "  Yes,"  he  said, 
"  the  man  was  a  chaos  of  truths,  but  lacked  the 
knowledge  that  God  was  a  God  of  order.  Yet  the 
passage  would  no  doubt  strike  you  more  in  the 
quotation  than  in  the  original,  for  I  have  filtered  it." 


FIRST   VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  1 

When  I  rose  to  go,  lie  said,  "  I  do  not  know 
whether  you  care  about  poetry,  but  I  will  repeat 
some  verses  I  lately  made  on  my  baptismal  anniver 
sary,"  and  he  recited  with  strong  emphasis,  stand 
ing,  ten  or  twelve  lines,  beginning, 

"  Born  unto  God  in  Christ " 

He  inquired  where  I  had  been  travelling  ;  and 
on  learning  that  I  had  been  in  Malta  and  Sicily, 
he  compared  one  island  with  the  other,  '  repeating 
'  what  he  had  said  to  the  Bishop  of  London  when 
'  he  returned  from  that  country,  that  Sicily  was  an 
'  excellent  school  of  political  economy ;  for,  in  any 
'  town  there,  it  only  needed  to  ask  what  the  govern- 
( ment  enacted,  and  reverse  that  to  know  what  ought 
'  to  be  done ;  it  was  the  most  felicitously  opposite 
*  legislation  to  any  thing  good  and  wise.  There 
'  were  only  three  things  which  the  government  had 
'  brought  into  that  garden  of  delights,  namely,  itch, 
f  pox,  and  famine.  Whereas,  in  Malta,  the  force  of 
'  law  and  mind  was  seen,  in  making  that  barren  rock 
'  of  semi-Saracen  inhabitants  the  seat  of  population 
'  and  plenty.'  Going  out,  he  showed  me  in  the  next 
apartment  a  picture  of  Allston's,  and  told  me  « that 
'  Montague,  a  picture-dealer,  once  came  to  see  him, 
'  and,  glancing  towards  this,  said,  "  Well,  you  have 
«  got  a  picture  !  "  thinking  it  the  work  of  an  old 


20  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

f  master  ;  afterwards,  Montague,  still  talking  with 
'his  back  to  the  canvas,  put  up  his  hand  and 
f  touched  it,  and  exclaimed,  "  By  Heaven !  this 
'  picture  is  not  ten  years  old  :  "  —  so  delicate  and 
'  skilful  was  that  man's  touch.' 

I  was  in  his  company  for  about  an  hour,  but 
find  it  impossible  to  recall  the  largest  part  of  his 
discourse,  which  was  often  like  so  many  printed 
paragraphs  in  his  book,  —  perhaps  the  same,  —  so 
readily  did  he  fall  into  certain  commonplaces.  As 
I  might  have  foreseen,  the  visit  was  rather  a  spec 
tacle  than  a  conversation,  of  no  use  beyond  the 
satisfaction  of  my  curiosity.  He  was  old  and  pre 
occupied,  and  could  not  bend  to  a  new  companion 
and  think  with  him. 


From  Edinburgh  I  went  to  the  Highlands.  On 
my  return,  I  came  from  Glasgow  to  Dumfries,  and 
being  intent  on  delivering  a  letter  which  I  had 
brought  from  Rome,  inquired  for  Craigenputtock. 
It  was  a  farm  in  Nithsdale,  in  the  parish  of  Dun- 
score,  sixteen  miles  distant.  No  public  coach 
passed  near  it,  so  I  took  a  private  carriage  from 
the  inn.  I  found  the  house  amid  desolate  heathery 
hills,  where  the  lonely  scholar  nourished  his  mighty 
heart.  Carlyle  was  a  man  from  his  youth,  an  au- 


FIRST    VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  21 

thor  who  did  not  need  to  hide  from  his  readers,  and 
as  absolute  a  man  of  the  world,  unknown  and  exiled 
on  that  hill-farm,  as  if  holding  on  his  own  terms 
what  is  best  in  London.  He  was  tall  and  gaunt, 
with  a  cliff-like  brow,  self-possessed,  and  holding  his 
extraordinary  powers  of  conversation  in  easy  com 
mand  ;  clinging  to  his  northern  accent  with  evident 
relish ;  full  of  lively  anecdote,  and  with  a  stream 
ing  humor,  which  floated  every  thing  he  looked 
upon.  His  talk  playfully  exalting  the  familial 
objects,  put  the  companion  at  once  into  an  acquaint 
ance  with  his  Lars  and  Lemurs,  and  it  was  very 
pleasant  to  learn  what  was  predestined  to  be  a  pretty 
mythology.  Few  were  the  objects  and  lonely  the 
man,  "not  a  person  to  speak  to  within  sixteen 
miles  except  the  minister  of  Dunscore  ;  "  so  that 
books  inevitably  made  his  topics. 

He  had  names  of  his  own  for  all  the  matters 
familiar  to  his  discourse.  "  Blackwood's  "  was  the 
ff  sand  magazine  ;  "  "  Eraser's  "  nearer  approach  to 
possibility  of  life  was  the  "  mud  magazine  ; "  a 
piece  of  road  near  by  that  marked  some  failed  en 
terprise  was  the  "grave  of  the  last  sixpence." 
When  too  much  praise  of  any  genius  annoyed  him, 
he  professed  hugely  to  admire  the  talent  shown  by 
his  pig.  He  had  spent  much  time  and  contrivance 
in  confining  the  poor  beast  to  one  enclosure  in  his 


22  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

pen,  but  pig,  by  great  strokes  of  judgment,  had 
found  out  how  to  let  a  board  down,  and  had  foiled 
him.  For  all  that,  he  still  thought  man  the  most 
plastic  little  fellow  in  the  planet,  and  he  liked 
Nero's  death,  "  Qualis  artifex  pereo  !  "  better  than 
most  history.  He  worships  a  man  that  will  mani 
fest  any  truth  to  him.  At  one  time  he  had  in 
quired  and  read  a  good  deal  about  America.  Lan- 
dor's  principle  was  mere  rebellion,  and  that  he 
feared  was  the  American  principle.  The  best  thing 
he  knew  of  that  country  was,  that  in  it  a  man  can 
have  meat  for  his  labor.  He  had  read  in  Stewart's 
book,  that  when  he  inquired  in  a  New  York  hotel 
for  the  Boots,  he  had  been  shown  across  the  street 
and  had  found  Mungo  in  his  own  house  dining 
on  roast  turkey. 

We  talked  of  books.  Plato  he  does  not  read, 
and  he  disparaged  Socrates  ;  and,  when  pressed, 
persisted  in  making  Mirabeau  a  hero.  Gibbon  he 
called  the  splendid  bridge  from  the  old  world  to 
the  new.  His  own  reading  had  been  multifarious. 
Tristram  Shandy  was  one  of  his  first  books  after 
Robinson  Crusoe,  and  Robertson's  America  an 
early  favorite.  Rousseau's  Confessions  had  dis 
covered  to  him  that  he  was  not  a  dunce ;  and  it 
was  now  ten  years  since  he  had  learned  German, 
by  the  advice  of  a  man  who  told  him  he  would 
find  in  that  language  what  he  wanted. 


FIRST   VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  23 

He  took  despairing  or  satirical  views  of  litera 
ture  at  this  moment ;  recounted  the  incredible 
sums  paid  in  one  year  by  the  great  booksellers  for 
puffing.  Hence  it  comes  that  no  newspaper  is 
trusted  now,  no  books  are  bought,  and  the  book 
sellers  are  on  the  eve  of  bankruptcy. 

He  still  returned  to  English  pauperism,  the 
crowded  country,  the  selfish  abdication  by  public 
men  of  all  that  public  persons  should  perform. 
(  Government  should  direct  poor  men  what  to  do. 
'  Poor  Irish  folk  come  wandering  over  these  moors. 
'  My  dame  makes  it  a  rule  to  give  to  every  son  of 
f  Adam  bread  to  eat,  and  supplies  his  wants  to  the 
'  next  house.  But  here  are  thousands  of  acres 
'  which  might  give  them  all  meat,  and  nobody  to 
*  bid  these  poor  Irish  go  to  the  moor  and  till  it. 
'  They  burned  the  stacks,  and  so  found  a  way  to 
'force  the  rich  people  to  attend  to  them.' 

We  went  out  to  walk  over  long  hills,  and  looked 
at  Criffel,  then  without  his  cap,  and  down  into 
Wordsworth's  country.  There  we  sat  down,  and 
talked  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  It  was  not 
Carlyle's  fault  that  we  talked  on  that  topic,  for  he 
had  the  natural  disinclination  of  every  nimble 
spirit  to  bruise  itself  against  walls,  and  did  not 
like  to  place  himself  where  no  step  can  be  taken. 
But  he  was  honest  and  true,  and  cognizant  of  the 


24  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

subtile  links  that  bind  ages  together,  and  saw  how 
every  event  affects  all  the  future.  '  Christ  died 
'  on  the  tree :  that  built  Dunscore  kirk  yonder :  that 
'  brought  you  and  me  together.  Time  has  only  a 
'  relative  existence.' 

He  was  already  turning  his  eyes  towards  Lon 
don  with  a  scholar's  appreciation.  London  is  the 
heart  of  the  world,  he  said,  wonderful  only  from 
the  mass  of  human  beings.  He  liked  the  huge 
machine.  Each  keeps  its  own  round.  The  ba 
ker's  boy  brings  muffins  to  the  window  at  a  fixed 
hour  every  day,  and  that  is  all  the  Londoner  knows 
or  wishes  to  know  on  the  subject.  But  it  turned 
out  good  men.  He  named  certain  individuals, 
especially  one  man  of  letters,  his  friend,  the  best 
mind  he  knew,  whom  London  had  well  served. 


On  the  28th  August,  I  went  to  Rydal  Mount, 
to  pay  my  respects  to  Mr.  Wordsworth.  His 
daughters  called  in  their  father,  a  plain,  elderly, 
white-haired  man,  not  prepossessing,  and  disfigured 
by  green  goggles.  He  sat  down,  and  talked  with 
great  simplicity.  He  had  just  returned  from  a 
journey.  His  health  was  good,  but  he  had  broken 
a  tooth  by  a  fall,  when  walking  with  two  lawyers, 
and  had  said,  that  he  was  glad  it  did  not  happen 


FIRST   VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  25 

forty  years  ago ;  whereupon  they  had  praised  his 
philosophy. 

He  had  much  to  say  of  America,  the  more  that 
it  gave  occasion  for  his  favorite  topic,  —  that  society 
is  being  enlightened  by  a  superficial  tuition,  out 
of  all  proportion  to  its  being  restrained  by  moral 
culture.  Schools  do  no  good.  Tuition  is  not 
education.  He  thinks  more  of  the  education  of 
circumstances  than  of  tuition.  'Tis  not  question 
whether  there  are  offences  of  which  the  law  takes 
cognizance,  but  whether  there  are  offences  of 
which  the  law  does  not  take  cognizance.  Sin  is 
what  he  fears,  and  how  society  is  to  escape  with 
out  gravest  mischiefs  from  this  source  —  ?  He 
has  even  said,  what  seemed  a  paradox,  that  they 
needed  a  civil  war  in  America,  to  teach  the  ne 
cessity  of  knitting  the  social  ties  stronger.  f  There 
'  may  be,'  he  said,  '  in  America  some  vulgarity  in 
*  manner,  but  that's  not  important.  That  comes  of 
'  the  pioneer  state  of  things.  But  I  fear  they  are 
'  too  much  given  to  the  making  of  money ;  and  sec- 
(  ondly,  to  politics  ;  that  they  make  political  distinc- 
'  tion  the  end,  and  not  the  means.  And  I  fear  they 
1  lack  a  class  of  men  of  leisure,  —  in  short,  of  gen- 
'  tlemen,  —  to  give  a  tone  of  honor  to  the  commu- 
'  nity.  I  am  told  that  things  are  boasted  of  in  the 
'  second  class  of  society  there,  which,  in  England, 
3 


26  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

'  —  God  knows,  are  done  in  England  every  day,  — 
«  but  would  never  be  spoken  of.  In  America  I  wish 
*  to  know  not  how  many  churches  or  schools,  but 
f  what  newspapers  ?  My  friend,  Colonel  Hamilton, 
'  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  who  was  a  year  in  America, 
e  assures  me  that  the  newspapers  are  atrocious,  and 
'  accuse  members  of  Congress  of  stealing  spoons  ! ' 
He  was  against  taking  off  the  tax  on  newspapers 
in  England,  which  the  reformers  represent  as  a  tax 
upon  knowledge,  for  this  reason,  that  they  would 
be  inundated  with  base  prints.  He  said,  he  talked 
on  political  aspects,  for  he  wished  to  impress  on 
me  and  all  good  Americans  to  cultivate  the  moral, 
the  conservative,  &c.,  &c.,  and  never  to  call  into 
action  the  physical  strength  of  the  people,  as  had 
just  now  been  done  in  England  in  the  Reform 
Bill,  —  a  thing  prophesied  by  Delolme.  He  alluded 
once  or  twice  to  his  conversation  with  Dr.  Chan- 
ning,  who  had  recently  visited  him,  (laying  his 
hand  on  a  particular  chair  in  which  the  Doctor  had 
sat.) 

The  conversation  turned  on  books.     Lucretius 

he  esteems  a  far  higher  poet  than  Virgil :  not  in 

I  his  system,  which  is  nothing,  but  in  his  power  of 

I  illustration.      Faith    is   necessary    to   explain    any 

thing,  and  to  reconcile  the  foreknowledge  of  God 

with  human  evil.     Of  Cousin,  (whose  lectures  we 


FIRST    VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  27 

had  all  been  reading    in   Boston,)  he  knew  only 
the  name. 

I  inquired  if  he  had  read  Carlyle's  critical  arti 
cles  and  translations.  He  said,  he  thought  him 
sometimes  insane.  He  proceeded  to  abuse  Goethe's 
Wilhelm  Meister  heartily.  It  was  full  of  all  man 
ner  of  fornication.  It  was  like  the  crossing  of  flies 
in  the  air.  He  had  never  gone  farther  than  the 
first  part ;  so  disgusted  was  he  that  he  threw  the 
book  across  the  room.  I  deprecated  this  wrath, 
and  said  what  I  could  for  the  better  parts  of  the 
book  ;  and  he  courteously  promised  to  look  at  it 
again.  Carlyle,  he  said,  wrote  most  obscurely. 
He  was  clever  and  deep,  but  he  defied  the  sympa 
thies  of  every  body.  Even  Mr.  Coleridge  wrote 
more  clearly,  though  he  had  always  wished  Cole 
ridge  would  write  more  to  be  understood.  He  led 
.ne  out  into  his  garden,  and  showed  me  the  gravel 
walk  in  which  thousands  of  his  lines  were  com 
posed.  His  eyes  are  much  inflamed.  This  is  no 
loss,  except  for  reading,  because  he  never  writes 
prose,  and  of  poetry  he  carries  even  hundreds  of 
lines  in  his  head  before  writing  them.  He  had 
just  returned  from  a  visit  to  Staffa,  and  within 
three  days  had  made  three  sonnets  on  FingaPs 
Cave,  and  was  composing  a  fourth,  when  he  was 
called  in  to  see  me.  He  said,  "  If  you  are  inter- 


28  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

ested  in  my  verses,  perhaps  you  will  like  to  hear 
these  lines."  I  gladly  assented ;  and  he  recollected 
himself  for  a  few  moments,  and  then  stood  forth 
and  repeated,  one  after  the  other,  the  three  entire 
sonnets  with  great  animation.  I  fancied  the  second 
and  third  more  beautiful  than  his  poems  are  wont 
to  be.  The  third  is  addressed  to  the  flowers,  which, 
he  said,  especially  the  oxeye  daisy,  are  very  abun 
dant  on  the  top  of  the  rock.  The  second  alludes 
to  the  name  of  the  cave,  which  is  "  Cave  of  Mu 
sic  ;  "  the  first  to  the  circumstance  of  its  being 
visited  by  the  promiscuous  company  of  the  steam 
boat. 

This  recitation  was  so  unlocked  for  and  sur 
prising,  —  he,  the  old  Wordsworth,  standing  apart, 
and  reciting  to  me  in  a  garden-walk,  like  a  school 
boy  declaiming,  —  that  I  at  first  was  near  to 
laugh;  but  recollecting  myself,  that  I  had  come 
thus  far  to  see  a  poet,  and  he  was  chanting  poems 
to  me,  I  saw  that  he  was  right  and  I  was  wrong, 
and  gladly  gave  myself  up  to  hear.  I  told  him 
how  much  the  few  printed  extracts  had  quickened 
the  desire  to  possess  his  unpublished  poems.  He 
replied,  he  never  was  in  haste  to  publish  ;  partly, 
because  he  corrected  a  good  deal,  and  every  alter 
ation  is  ungraciously  received  after  printing ;  but 
what  he  had  written  would  be  printed,  whether  he 


FIRST    VISIT    TO    ENGLAND.  29 

lived  or  died.  I  said,  ee  Tintern  Abbey  "  appeared 
to  be  the  favorite  poem  with  the  public,  but  more 
contemplative  readers  preferred  the  first  books 
of  the  "  Excursion,"  and  the  Sonnets.  He  said, 
"  Yes,  they  are  better."  He  preferred  such  of  his 
poems  as  touched  the  affections,  to  any  others  ;  for 
whatever  is  didactic,  —  what  theories  of  society,  and 
so  on,  —  might  perish  quickly  ;  but  whatever  com 
bined  a  truth  with  an  affection  was  xrypa  s$  asi, 
good  to-day  and  good  forever.  He  cited  the  son 
net  "  On  the  feelings  of  a  high-minded  Spaniard," 
which  he  preferred  to  any  other,  (I  so  understood 
him,)  and  the  "  Two  Voices  ;  "  and  quoted,  with 
evident  pleasure,  the  verses  addressed  "  To  the 
Skylark."  In  this  connection,  he  said  of  the 
Newtonian  theory,  that  it  might  yet  be  superseded 
and  forgotten  ;  and  Dalton's  atomic  theory. 

When  I  prepared  to  depart,  he  said  he  wished 
to  show  me  what  a  common  person  in  England 
could  do,  and  he  led  me  into  the  enclosure  of  his 
clerk,  a  young  man,  to  whom  he  had  given  this 
slip  of  ground,  which  was  laid  out,  or  its  natural 
capabilities  shown,  with  much  taste.  He  then  said 
he  would  show  me  a  better  way  towards  the  inn ; 
and  he  walked  a  good  part  of  a  mile,  talking,  and 
ever  and  anon  stopping  short  to  impress  the  word 
3* 


30  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

or  the  verse*  and  finally  parted  from  me  with,  great 
kindness,  and  returned  across  the  fields. 

Wordsworth  honored  himself  by  his  simple  ad 
herence  to  truth,  and  was  very  willing  not  to  shine ; 
but  he  surprised  by  the  hard  limits  of  his  thought. 
To  judge  from  a  single  conversation,  he  made  the 
impression  of  a  narrow  and  very  English  mind ; 
of  one  who  paid  for  his  rare  elevation  by  general 
tameness  and  conformity.  Off  his  own  beat,  his 
opinions  were  of  no  value.  It  is  not  very  rare  to 
find  persons  loving  sympathy  and  ease,  who  expi 
ate  their  departure  from  the  common,  in  one  direc 
tion,  by  their  conformity  in  every  other. 


CHAPTER    II. 

VOYAGE  TO  ENGLAND. 

THE  occasion  of  my  second  visit  to  England 
was  an  invitation  from  some  Mechanics'  Institutes 
in  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire,  which  separately 
are  organized  much  in  the  same  way  as  our  New 
England  Lyceums,  but,  in  1847,  had  been  linked 
into  a  "  Union,"  which  embraced  twenty  or  thirty 
towns  and  cities,  and  presently  extended  into  the 
middle  counties,  and  northward  into  Scotland. 
I  was  invited,  on  liberal  terms,  to  read  a  series  of 
lectures  in  them  all.  The  request  was  urged  with 
every  kind  suggestion,  and  every  assurance  of  aid 
and  comfort,  by  friendliest  parties  in  Manchester, 
who,  in  the  sequel,  amply  redeemed  their  word. 
The  remuneration  was  equivalent  to  the  fees  at  that 
time  paid  in  this  country  for  the  like  services.  At 
all  events,  it  was  sufficient  to  cover  any  travelling 
expenses,  and  the  proposal  offered  an  excellent  op 
portunity  of  seeing  the  interior  of  England  and 

(31) 


32  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Scotland,  by  means  of  a  home,  and  a  committee  of 
intelligent  friends,  awaiting  me  in  every  town. 

I  did  not  go  very  willingly.  I  am  not  a  good 
traveller,  nor  have  I  found  that  long  journeys  yield 
a  fair  share  of  reasonable  hours.  But  the  invita 
tion  was  repeated  and  pressed  at  a  moment  of  more 
leisure,  and  when  I  was  a  little  spent  by  some  un 
usual  studies.  I  wanted  a  change  and  a  tonic,  and 
England  was  proposed  to  me.  Besides,  there  were, 
at  least,  the  dread  attraction  and  salutary  influences 
of  the  sea.  So  I  took  my  berth  in  the  packet-ship 
Washington  Irving,  and  sailed  from  Boston  on 
Tuesday,  5th  October,  1847. 

On  Friday  at  noon,  we  had  only  made  one  hun 
dred  and  thirty-four  miles.  A  nimble  Indian 
would  have  swum  as  far  ;  but  the  captain  affirmed 
that  the  ship  would  show  us  in  time  all  her  paces, 
and  we  crept  along  through  the  floating  drift  of 
boards,  logs,  and  chips,  which  the  rivers  of  Maine 
and  New  Brunswick  pour  into  the  sea  after  a  freshet. 

At  last,  on  Sunday  night,  after  doing  one  day's 
work  in  four,  the  storm  came,  the  winds  blew,  and 
we  flew  before  a  north-wester,  which  strained  every 
rope  and  sail.  The  good  ship  darts  through  the 
water  all  day,  all  night,  like  a  fish,  quivering  with 
speed,  gliding  through  liquid  leagues,  sliding  from 
horizon  to  horizon.  She  has  passed  Cape  Sable  j 


VOYAGE    TO    ENGLAND.  33 

she  has  reached  the  Banks  ;  the  land-birds  are 
left ;  gulls,  haglets,  ducks,  petrels,  swim,  dive,  and 
hover  around ;  no  fishermen ;  she  has  passed  the 
Banks ;  left  five  sail  behind  her,  far  on  the  edge  of 
the  west  at  sundown,  which  were  far  east  of  us  at 
morn,  —  though  they  say  at  sea  a  stern  chase  is  a 
long  race,  —  and  still  we  fly  for  our  lives.  The 
shortest  sea-line  from  Boston  to  Liverpool  is 
2850  miles.  This  a  steamer  keeps,  and  saves 
150  miles.  A  sailing  ship  can  never  go  in  a 
shorter  line  than  3000,  and  usually  it  is  much 
longer.  Our  good  master  keeps  his  kites  up  to 
the  last  moment,  studding-sails  alow  and  aloft,  and, 
by  incessant  straight  steering,  never  loses  a  rod  of 
way.  Watchfulness  is  the  law  of  the  ship,  — 
watch  on  watch,  for  advantage  and  for  life.  Since 
the  ship  was  built,  it  seems,  the  master  never  slept 
but  in  his  day-clothes  whilst  on  board.  "  There 
are  many  advantages,"  says  Saadi,  "  in  sea-voyag 
ing,  but  security  is  not  one  of  them."  Yet  in  hur 
rying  over  these  abysses,  whatever  dangers  we  are 
running  into,  we  are  certainly  running  out  of  the 
risks  of  hundreds  of  miles  every  day,  which  have 
their  own  chances  of  squall,  collision,  sea-stroke, 
piracy,  cold,  and  thunder.  Hour  for  hour,  the  risk 
on  a  steamboat  is  greater ;  but  the  speed  is  safety, 
or,  twelve  days  of  danger,  instead  of  twenty-four. 


34  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Our  ship  was  registered  750  tons,  and  weighed 
perhaps,  with  all  her  freight,  1500  tons.  The 
mainmast,  from  the  deck  to  the  top-button,  meas 
ured  115  feet;  the  length  of  the  deck,  from 
stem  to  stern,  155.  It  is  impossible  not  to  person 
ify  a  ship ;  every  body  does,  in  every  thing  they 
say  :  —  she  behaves  well ;  she  minds  her  rudder ; 
she  swims  like  a  duck  ;  she  runs  her  nose  into  the 
water  ;  she  looks  into  a  port.  Then  that  wonder 
ful  esprit  du  corps,  by  which  we  adopt  into  our 
self-love  every  thing  we  touch,  makes  us  all  cham 
pions  of  her  sailing  qualities. 

The  conscious  ship  hears  all  the  praise.  In  one 
week  she  has  made  1467  miles,  and  now,  at  night, 
seems  to  hear  the  steamer  behind  her,  which  left 
Boston  to-day  at  two,  has  mended  her  speed,  and  is 
flying  before  the  gray  south  wind  eleven  and  a  half 
knots  the  hour.  The  sea-fire  shines  in  her  wake, 
and  far  around  wherever  a  wave  breaks.  I  read  the 
hour,  9h.  45',  on  my  watch  by  this  light.  Near 
the  equator,  you  can  read  small  print  by  it ;  and  the 
mate  describes  the  phosphoric  insects,  when  taken 
up  in  a  pail,  as  shaped  like  a  Carolina  potato. 

I  find  the  sea-life  an  acquired  taste,  like  that  for 
tomatoes  and  olives.  The  confinement,  cold,  mo 
tion,  noise,  and  odor  are  not  to  be  dispensed  with. 
The  floor  of  your  room  is  sloped  at  an  angle  of 


VOYAGE    TO    ENGLAND. 


twenty  or  thirty  degrees,  and  I  waked  every  morn 
ing  with,  the  belief  that  some  one  was  tipping  up 
my  berth.  Nobody  likes  to  be  treated  ignomin- 
iously,  upset,  shoved  against  the  side  of  the  house, 
rolled  over,  suffocated  with  bilge,  mephitis,  and 
stewing  oil.  "We  get  used  to  these  annoyances 
at  last,  but  the  dread  of  the  sea  remains  longer. 
The  sea  is  masculine,  the  type  of  active  strength. 
Look,  what  egg-shells  are  drifting  all  over  it,  each 
one,  like  ours,  filled  with  men  in  ecstasies  of  ter 
ror,  alternating  with  cockney  conceit,  as  the  sea  is 
rough  or  smooth.  Is  this  sad-colored  circle  an 
eternal  cemetery  ?  In  our  graveyards  we  scoop  a 
pit,  but  this  aggressive  water  opens  mile-wide  pits 
and  chasms,  and  makes  a  mouthful  of  a  fleet.  To 
the  geologist,  the  sea  is  the  only  firmament ; 
the  land  is  in  perpetual  flux  and  change,  now 
blown  up  like  a  tumor,  now  sunk  in  a  chasm, 
and  the  registered  observations  of  a  few  hundred 
years  find  it  in  a  perpetual  tilt,  rising  and  falling. 
The  sea  keeps  its  old  level ;  and  'tis  no  wonder  that 
the  history  of  our  race  is  so  recent,  if  the  roar  of 
the  ocean  is  silencing  our  traditions.  A  rising  of 
the  sea,  such  as  has  been  observed,  say  an  inch  in 
a  century,  from  east  to  west  on  the  land,  will  bury 
all  the  towns,  monuments,  bones,  and  knowledge 
of  mankind,  steadily  and  insensibly.  If  it  is  capa 


ENGLISH    TRAITS. 


ble  of  these  great  and  secular  mischiefs,  it  is  quite 
as  ready  at  private  and  local  damage  ;  and  of  this 
no  landsman  seems  so  fearful  as  the  seaman.  Such 
discomfort  and  such  danger  as  the  narratives  of  the 
captain  and  mate  disclose  are  bad  enough  as  the 
costly  fee  we  pay  for  entrance  to  Europe  ;  but  the 
wonder  is  always  new  that  any  sane  man  can  be  a  sail 
or.  And  here,  on  the  second  day  of  our  voyage, 
stepped  out  a  little  boy  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  who 
had  hid  himself,  whilst  the  ship  was  in  port,  in  the 
bread-closet,  having  no  money,  and  wishing  to  go 
to  England.  The  sailors  have  dressed  him  in 
Guernsey  frock,  with  a  knife  in  his  belt,  and  lie  is 
climbing  nimbly  about  after  them,  "  likes  the  work 
first-rate,  and,  if  the  captain  will  take  him,  means 
now  to  come  back  again  in  the  ship."  The  mate 
avers  that  this  is  the  history  of  all  sailors  ;  nine 
out  of  ten  are  runaway  boys  ;  and  adds,  that  all  of 
them  are  sick  of  the  sea,  but  stay  in  it  out  of 
pride.  Jack  has  a  life  of  risks,  incessant  abuse, 
and  the  worst  pay.  It  is  a  little  better  with  the 
mate,  and  not  very  much  better  with  the  captain. 
A  hundred  dollars  a  month  is  reckoned  high  pay. 
If  sailors  were  contented,  if  they  had  not  resolved 
again  and  again  not  to  go  to  sea  any  more,  I  should 
respect  them. 

Of  course,  the  inconveniences  and  terrors  of  the 


VOYAGE    TO    ENGLAND. 


sea  are  not  of  any  account  to  those  whose  minds 
are  preoccupied.  The  water-laws,  arctic  frost,  the 
mountain,  the  mine,  only  shatter  cockneyism  ;  every 
noble  activity  makes  room  for  itself.  A  great 
mind  is  a  good  sailor,  as  a  great  heart  is.  And  the 
sea  is  not  slow  in  disclosing  inestimable  secrets  to 
a  good  naturalist. 

Tis  a  good  rule  in  every  journey  to  provide 
some  piece  of  liberal  study  to  rescue  the  hours 
which  bad  weather,  bad  company,  and  taverns  steal 
from  the  best  economist.  Classics  which  at  home 
are  drowsily  read  have  a  strange  charm  in  a  coun 
try  inn,  or  in  the  transom  of  a  merchant  brig.  I 
remember  that  some  of  the  happiest  and  most  val 
uable  hours  I  have  owed  to  books,  passed,  many 
years  ago,  on  shipboard.  The  worst  impediment  I 
have  found  at  sea  is  the  want  of  light  in  the  cabin. 

We  found  on  board  the  usual  cabin  library ; 
Basil  Hall,  Dumas,  Dickens,  Bulwer,  Balzac,  and 
Sand  were  our  sea-gods.  Among  the  passengers, 
there  was  some  variety  of  talent  and  profession  ; 
we  exchanged  our  experiences,  and  all  learned 
something.  The  busiest  talk  with  leisure  and  con 
venience  at  sea,  and  sometimes  a  memorable  fact 
turns  up,  which  you  have  long  had  a  vacant  niche 
for,  and  seize  with  the  joy  of  a  collector.  But, 
under  the  best  conditions,  a  voyage  is  one  of  the 
4 


38  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

severest  tests  to  try  a  man.  A  college  examina 
tion  is  nothing  to  it.  Sea-days  are  long,  —  these 
lack-lustre,  joyless  days  which  whistled  over  us  ; 
but  they  were  few,  —  only  fifteen,  as  the  captain 
counted,  sixteen  according  to  me.  Reckoned  from 
the  time  when  we  left  soundings,  our  s'peed  was 
such  that  the  captain  drew  the  line  of  his  course 
in  red  ink  on  his  chart,  for  the  encouragement  or 
envy  of  future  navigators. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  King  of  England  would 
consult  his  dignity  by  giving  audience  to  foreign 
ambassadors  in  the  cabin  of  a  man-of-war.  And 
I  think  the  white  path  of  an  Atlantic  ship  the  right 
avenue  to  the  palace  front  of  this  seafaring  people, 
who  for  hundreds  of  years  claimed  the  strict  sov 
ereignty  of  the  sea,  and  exacted  toll  and  the  strik 
ing  sail  from  the  ships  of  all  other  peoples.  When 
their  privilege  was  disputed  by  the  Dutch  and 
other  junior  marines,  on  the  plea  that  you  could 
never  anchor  on  the  same  wave,  or  hold  property 
in  what  was  always  flowing,  the  English  did  not 
stick  to  claim  the  channel,  or  bottom  of  all  the 
main.  "  As  if,"  said  they,  "  we  contended  for  the 
drops  of  the  sea,  and  not  for  its  situation,  or  the  bed 
of  those  waters.  The  sea  is  bounded  by  his  majes 
ty's  empire." 

As  we  neared  the  land,  its  genius  was  felt.    This 


VOYAGE    TO    ENGLAND.  39 

was  inevitably  the  British  side.  In  every  man's 
thought  arises  now  a  new  system,  English  senti 
ments,  English  loves  and  fears,  English  history 
and  social  modes.  Yesterday,  every  passenger  had 
measured  the  speed  of  the  ship  by  watching  the 
bubbles  over  the  ship's  bulwarks.  To-day,  instead 
of  bubbles,  we  measure  by  Kinsale,  Cork,  Water- 
ford,  and  Ardmore.  There  lay  the  green  shore 
of  Ireland,  like  some  coast  of  plenty.  We  could 
see  towns,  towers,  churches,  harvests  ;  but  the 
curse  of  eight  hundred  years  we  could  not  discern. 


$«-     — *-*        •*• 

Library 


CHAPTEK    III. 

LAND. 

ALFIERI  thought  Italy  and  England  the  only 
countries  worth  living  in  ;  the  former,  because  there 
nature  vindicates  her  rights,  and  triumphs  over  the 
evils  inflicted  by  the  governments  ;  the  latter,  be 
cause  art  conquers  nature,  and  transforms  a  rude, 
ungenial  land  into  a  paradise  of  comfort  and  plenty. 
England  is  a  garden.  Under  an  ash-colored  sky, 
the  fields  have  been  combed  and  rolled  till  they 
appear  to  have  been  finished  with  a  pencil  instead 
of  a  plough.  The  solidity  of  the  structures  that 
compose  the  towns  speaks  the  industry  of  ages. 
Nothing  is  left  as  it  was  made.  Bivers,  hills,  val 
leys,  the  sea  itself  feel  the  hand  of  a  master.  The 
long  habitation  of  a  powerful  and  ingenious  race 
has  turned  every  rood  of  land  to  its  best  use,  has 
found  all  the  capabilities,  the  arable  soil,  the  quar- 
riable  rock,  the  highways,  the  byways,  the  fords, 
the  navigable  waters  ;  and  the  new  arts  of  inter 
course  meet  you  every  where  ;  so  that  England  is 

(40) 


LAND.  41 

a  huge  phalanstery,  where  all  that  man  wants  is 
provided  within  the  precinct)  Cushioned  and 
comforted  in  every  manner,  the  traveller  rides  as 
on  a  cannon-ball,  high  and  low,  over  rivers  and 
towns,  through  mountains,  in  tunnels  of  three  or 
four  miles,  at  near  twice  the  speed  of  our  trains  ; 
and  reads  quietly  the  Times  newspaper,  which,  by 
its  immense  correspondence  and  reporting,  seems 
to  have  machinized  the  rest  of  the  world  for  his 
occasion. 

The  problem  of  the  traveller  landing  at  Liver 
pool  is,  Why  England  is  England  ?  What  are  the 
elements  of  that  power  which  the  English  hold 
over  other  nations  ?  If  there  be  one  test  of  na 
tional  genius  universally  accepted,  it  is  success  ; 
and  if  there  be  one  successful  country  in  the  uni 
verse  for  the  last  millennium,  that  country  is  Eng 
land. 

A  wise  traveller  will  naturally  choose  to  visit  the 
best  of  actual  nations  ;  and  an  American  has  more 
reasons  than  another  to  draw  him  to  Britain.  In 
all  that  is  done  or  begun  by  the  Americans  to 
wards  right  thinking  or  practice,  we  are  met  by  a 
civilization  already  settled  and  overpowering.  The 
culture  of  the  day,  the  thoughts  and  aims  of  men, 
are  English  thoughts  and  aims.  A  nation  consider 
able  for  a  thousand  years  since  Egbert,  it  has,  in  the 
4* 


42  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

last  centuries,  obtained  the  ascendant,  and  stamped 
the  knowledge,  activity,  and  power  of  mankind 
with  its  impress.  Those  who  resist  it  do  not  feel 
it  or  obey  it  less.  The  Russian  in  his  snows  is 
aiming  to  be  English.  The  Turk  and  Chinese 
also  are  making  awkward  efforts  to  be  English. 
The  practical  common-sense  of  modern  society, 
the  utilitarian  direction  which  labor,  laws,  opinion, 
religion  take,  is  the  natural  genius  of  the  British 
mind.  The  influence  of  France  is  a  constituent 
of  modern  civility,  but  not  enough  opposed  to  the 
English  for  the  most  wholesome  effect.  The 
American  is  only  the  continuation  of  the  English 
genius  into  new  conditions,  more  or  less  propitious. 

See  what  books  fill  our  libraries.  Every  book 
we  read,  every  biography,  play,  romance,  in  what 
ever  form,  is  still  English  history  and  manners. 
So  that  a  sensible  Englishman  once  said  to  me,  "As 
long  as  you  do  not  grant  us  copyright,  we  shall 
have  the  teaching  of  you." 

But  we  have  the  same  difficulty  in  making  a 
social  or  moral  estimate  of  England,  as  the  "sheriff 
finds  in  drawing  a  jury  to  try  some  cause  which 
has  agitated  the  whole  community,  and  on  -\\  hich 
every  body  finds  himself  an  interested  party.  Of 
ficers,  jurors,  judges  have  all  taken  sides.  Eng 
land  has  inoculated  all  nations  with  her  civilization, 


LAND.  43 

intelligence,  and  tastes  ;  and,  to  resist  the  tyranny 
and  prepossession  of  the  British  element,  a  serious 
man  must  aid  himself,  by  comparing  with  it  the 
civilizations  of  the  farthest  east  and  west,  the  old 
Greek,  the  Oriental,  and,  much  more,  the  ideal 
standard,  if  only  by  means  of  the  very  impatience 
which  English  forms  are  sure  to  awaken  in  inde 
pendent  minds. 

Besides,  if  we  will  visit  London,  the  present 
time  is  the  best  time,  as  some  signs  portend  that  it 
has  reached  its  highest  point.  It  is  observed  that 
the  English  interest  us  a  little  less  within  a  few 
years  ;  and  hence  the  impression  that  the  British 
power  has  culminated,  is  in  solstice,  or  already  de 
clining. 

As  soon  as  you  enter  England,  which,  with  Wales, 
is  no  larger  than  the  State  of  Georgia,*  this  little 
land  stretches  by  an  illusion  to  the  dimensions  of 
an  empire.  The  innumerable  details,  the  crowded 
succession  of  towns,  cities,  cathedrals,  castles,  and 
great  and  decorated  estates,  the  number  and  power 
of  the  trades  and  guilds,  the  military  strength  and 
splendor,  the  multitudes  of  rich  and  of  remarkable 
people,  the  servants  and  equipages,  —  all  these 
catching  the  eye,  and  never  allowing  it  to  pause, 

*  Add  South  Carolina,  and  you  have  more  than  an  equivalent  for 
the  area  of  Scotland. 


44  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

hide  all  boundaries,  by  the  impression  of  magnifi 
cence  and  endless  wealth. 

I  reply  to  all  the  urgencies  that  refer  me  to  this 
and  that  object  indispensably  to  be  seen,  —  Yes, 
to  see  England  well  needs  a  hundred  years  ;  for, 
what  they  told  me  was  the  merit  of  Sir  John  Soane's 
Museum,  in  London,  —  that  it  was  well  packed 
and  well  saved,  —  is  the  merit  of  England  ;  —  it  is 
stuffed  full,  in  all  corners  and  crevices,  with  towns, 
towers,  churches,  villas,  palaces,  hospitals,  and 
charity-houses.  In  the  history  of  art,  it  is  a  long 
way  from  a  cromlech  to  York  minster  ;  yet  all  the 
intermediate  steps  may  still  be  traced  in  this  all- 
preserving  island. 

The  territory  has  a  singular  perfection.  The 
climate  is  warmer  by  many  degrees  than  it  is  en 
titled  to  by  latitude.  Neither  hot  nor  cold,  there 
is  no  hour  in  the  whole  year  when  one  cannot 
work.  Here  is  no  winter,  but  such  days  as  we 
have  in  Massachusetts  in  November,  a  temperature 
which  makes  no  exhausting  demand  on  human 
strength,  but  allows  the  attainment  of  the  largest 
stature.  Charles  the  Second  said,  "  it  invited  men 
abroad  more  days  in  the  year  and  more  hours  in 
the  day  than  another  country."  Then  England  has 
all  the  materials  of  a  working  country  except  wood. 
The  constant  rain,  —  a  rain  with  every  tide, in  some 


LAND.  45 

parts  of  the  island,  —  keeps  its  multitude  of  rivers 
full,  and  brings  agricultural  production  up  to  the 
highest  point.  It  has  plenty  of  water,  of  stone, 
of  potter's  clay,  of  coal,  of  salt,  and  of  iron.  The 
land  naturally  abounds  with  game,  immense  heaths 
and  downs  are  paved  with  quails,  grouse,  and  wood 
cock,  and  the  shores  are  animated  by  water  birds. 
The  rivers  and  the  surrounding  sea  spawn  with 
fish  ;  there  are  salmon  for  the  rich,  and  sprats  and 
herrings  for  the  poor.  In  the  northern  lochs,  the 
herring  are  in  innumerable  shoals ;  at  ons  season, 
the  country  people  say,  the  lakes  contain  one  part 
water  and  two  parts  fish. 

The  only  drawback  on  this  industrial  conven- 
iency,  is  the  darkness  of  its  sky.  The  night  and 
day  are  too  nearly  of  a  color.  It  strains  the  eyes 
to  read  and  to  write.  Add  the  coal  smoke.  In 
the  manufacturing  towns,  the  fine  soot  or  blacks 
darken  the  day,  give  white  sheep  the  color  of  black 
sheep,  discolor  the  human  saliva,  contaminate  the 
air,  poison  many  plants,  and  corrode  the  monuments 
and  buildings. 

The  London  fog  aggravates  the  distempers  of 
the  sky,  and  sometimes  justifies  the  epigram  on  the 
climate  by  an  English  wit,  "  in  a  fine  day,  looking 
up  a  chimney  ;  in  a  foul  day,  looking  down  one"." 
A  gentleman  in  Liverpool  told  me  that  he  found 


4G  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

he  could  do  without  a  fire  in  his  parlor  about  one 
day  in  the  year.  It  is  however  pretended,  that  the 
enormous  consumption  of  coal  in  the  island  is  also 
felt  in  modifying  the  general  climate. 

Factitious  climate,  factitious  position.  England 
resembles  a  ship  in  its  shape,  and,  if  it  were  one, 
its  best  admiral  could  not  have  worked  it,  or  an 
chored  it  in  a  more  judicious  or  effective  position. 
Sir  John  Herschel  said,  "  London  was  the  centre 
of  the  terrene  globe."  The  shopkeeping  nation, 
to  use  a  shop  word,  has  a  good  stand.  The  old 
Venetians  pleased  themselves  with  the  flattery,  that 
Venice  was  in  45°,  midway  between  the  poles  and 
the  line  ;  as  if  that  were  an  imperial  centrality. 
Long  of  old,  the  Greeks  fancied  Delphi  the  navel 
of  the  earth,  in  their  favorite  mode  of  fabling  the 
earth  to  be  an  animal.  The  Jews  believed  Jerusa 
lem  to  be  the  centre.  I  have  seen  a  krato metric 
chart  designed  to  show  that  the  city  of  Philadel 
phia  was  in  the  same  thermic  belt,  and,  by  infer 
ence,  in  the  same  belt  of  empire,  as  the  cities  of 
Athens,  Rome,  and  London.  It  was  drawn  by  a 
patriotic  Philadelphian,  and  was  examined  with 
pleasure,  under  his  showing,  by  the  inhabitants 
of  Chestnut  Street.  But,  when  carried  to  Charles 
ton,  to  New  Orleans,  and  to  Boston,  it  somehow 
failed  to  convince  the  ingenious  scholars  of  al] 
those  capitals. 


LAND.  47 

But  England  is  anchored  at  the  side  of  Europe, 
and  right  in  the  heart  of  the  modern  world.  The 
sea,  which,  according  to  Virgil's  famous  line.,  di 
vided  the  poor  Britons  utterly  from  the  world, 
proved  to  be  the  ring  of  marriage  with  all  nations. 
It  is  not  down  in  the  books,  —  it  is  written  only  in 
the  geologic  strata,  —  that  fortunate  day  when  a 
wave  of  the  German  Ocean  burst  the  old  isthmus 
which  joined  Kent  and  Cornwall  to  France,  and  gave 
to  this  fragment  of  Europe  its  impregnable  sea  wall, 
.cutting  off  an  island  of  eight  hundred  miles  in 
length,  with  an  irregular  breadth  reaching  to  three 
hundred  miles  ;  a  territory  large  enough  for  inde 
pendence  enriched  with  every  seed  of  national 
power,  so  near,  that  it  can  see  the  harvests  of  the 
continent ;  and  so  far,  that  who  would  cross  the 
strait  must  he  an  expert  mariner,  ready  for  tenir 
pests.  As  America,  Europe,  and  Asia  lie,  these 
Britons  have  precisely  the  best  commercial  position 
in  the  whole  planet,  and  are  sure  of  a  market 
for  all  the  goods  they  can  manufacture.  And  to 
make  these  advantages  avail,  the  River  Thames 
must  dig  its  spacious  outlet  to  the  sea  from  the. 
heart  of  the  kingdom,  giving  road  and  landing  to 
innumerable  ships,  and  all  the  conveniency  to  trade, 
that  a  people  so  skilful  and  sufficient  in  economiz 
ing  water-front  by  docks,  warehouses,  and  lighters 


48  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

required.  When  James  the  First  declared  his 
purpose  of  punishing  London  by  removing  his 
Court,  the  Lord  Mayor  replied,  tf  that,  in  removing 
his  royal  presence  from  his  lieges,  they  hoped  he 
would  leave  them  the  Thames." 

In  the  variety  of  surface,  Britain  is  a  miniature 
of  Europe,  having  plain,  forest,  marsh,  river,  sea 
shore  ;  mines  in  Cornwall ;  caves  in  Matlock  and 
Derbyshire  ;  delicious  landscape  in  Dovedale,  de 
licious  sea-view  at  Tor  Bay,  Highlands  in  Scotland, 
Snowdon  in  Wales  ;  and,  in  Westmoreland  and 
Cumberland,  a  pocket  Switzerland,  in  which  the 
lakes  and  mountains'  are  on  a  sufficient  scale  to  fill 
the  eye  and  touch  the  imagination.  It  is  a  nation 
conveniently  small.  Fqnjte.nelle  thought,  that  nature 
had  sometimes  a  little  affectation ;  and  there  is  such 
an  artificial  completeness  in  this  nation  of  artificers, 
as  if  there  were  a  design  from  the  beginning  to 
elaborate  a  bigger  Birmingham.  Nature  held 
counsel  with  herself,  and  said,  '  My  Romans  are 
gone.  To  build  my  new  empire,  I  will  choose  a 
rude  race,  all  masculine,  with  brutish  strength.  I 
will  not  grudge  a  competition  of  the  roughest 
males.  Let  buffalo  gore  buffalo,  and  the  pasture 
to  the  strongest !  For  I  have  work  that  requires 
the  best  will  and  sinew.  Sharp  and  temperate 
northern  breezes  shall  blow,  to  keep  that  will  alive 


LAND.  49 

and  alert.  The  sea  shall  disjoin  the  people  from 
others,  and  knit  them  to  a  fierce  nationality.  It 
shall  give  them  markets  on  every  side.  Long 
time  I  will  keep  them  on  their  feet,  by  poverty, 
border-wars,  seafaring,  sea-risks,  and  the  stimulus 
of  gain.  An  island,  —  but  not  so  large,  the  peo 
ple  not  so  many  as  to  glut  the  great  markets  and 
depress  one  another,  but  proportioned  to  the  size 
of  Europe  and  the  continents.' 

With  its  fruits,  and  wares,  and  money,  must  its 
civil  influence  radiate.  It  is  a  singular  coincidence 
to  this  geographic  centrality,  the  spiritual  centrali- 
ty,  which  Emanuel  Swedenborg  ascribes  to  the 
people.  "  For  the  English  nation,  the  best  of 
them  are  in  the  centre  of  all  Christians,  because 
they  have  interior  intellectual  light.  This  ap 
pears  conspicuously  in  the  spiritual  world.  This 
light  they  derive  from  the  liberty  of  speaking  and 
writing,  and  thereby  of  thinking." 
5 


CHAPTER    IV. 

RACE. 

AN  ingenious  anatomist  has  written  a  book  *  to 
prove  that  races  are  imperishable,  but  nations  are 
pliant  political  constructions,  easily  changed  or  de 
stroyed.  But  this  writer  did  not  found  his  assumed 
races  on  any  necessary  law,  disclosing  their  ideal  or 
metaphysical  necessity ;  nor  did  he,  on  the  other 
hand,  count  .with  precision  the  existing  races,  and 
settle  the  true  bounds ;  a  point  of  nicety,  and  the 
popular  test  of  the  theory.  The  individuals  at  the 
extremes  of  divergence  in  one  race  of  men  are  as 
unlike  as  the  wolf  to  the  lapdog.  Yet  each  vari 
ety  shades  down  imperceptibly  into  the  next,  and 
you  cannot  draw  the  line  where  a  race  begins  or 
ends.  Hence  every  writer  makes  a  different  count. 
Blumenbach  reckons  five  races ;  Humboldt  three ; 
and  Mr.  Pickering,  who  lately,  in  our  Exploring 
Expedition,  thinks  he  saw  all  the  kinds  of  men  that 
can  be  on  the  planet,  makes  eleven. 

*  The  Races,  a  Fragment.    By  Robert  Knox.    London :    1850. 

(50) 


RACE.  51 

The  British  Empire  is  reckoned  to  contain  222, 
000,000  souls,  —  perhaps  a  fifth  of  the  population 
of  the  globe  ;  and  to  comprise  a  territory  of  5,000,- 
000  square  miles.  So  far  have  British  people  pre 
dominated.  Perhaps  forty  of  these  millions  are  of 
British  stock.  Add  the  United  States  of  America, 
which  reckon,  exclusive  of  slaves,  20,000,000  of 
people,  on  a  territory  of  3,000,000  square  miles, 
and  in  which  the  foreign  element,  however  consider 
able,  is  rapidly  assimilated,  and  you  have  a  popula 
tion  of  English  descent  and  language,  of  60,000,000, 
and  governing  a  population  of  245,000,000  souls. 

The  British  census  proper  reckons  twenty-seven 
and  a  half  millions  in  the  home  countries.  "What 
makes  this  census  important  is  the  quality  of  the 
units  that  compose  it.  They  are  free  forcible  men, 
in  a  country  where  life  is  safe"  and  has  reached  the 
greatest  value.  They  give  the  bias  to  the  current 
age ;  and  that,  not  by  chance  or  by  mass,  but  by 
their  character,  and  by  the  number  of  individuals 
among  them  of  personal  ability.  It  has  been  de 
nied  that  the  English  have  genius.  Be  it  as  it 
may,  men  of  vast  intellect  have  been  born  on  their 
soil,  and  they  have  made  or  applied  the  principal 
inventions.  They  have  sound  bodies,  and  supreme 
endurance  in  war  and  in  labor.  The  spawning 
force  of  the  race  has  sufficed  to  the  colonization 


ENGLISH    TRAITS. 


of  great  parts  of  the  world  ;  yet  it  remains  to  be 
seen  whether  they  can  make  good  the  exodus  of 
millions  from  Great  Britain,  amounting,  in  1852? 
to  more  than  a  thousand  a  day.  They  have  assim 
ilating  force,  since  they  are  imitated  by  their  foreign 
subjects  ;  and  they  are  still  aggressive  and  propa 
gandist,  enlarging  the  dominion  of  their  arts  and 
liberty.  Their  laws  are  hospitable,  and  slavery 
does  not  exist  under  them.  What  oppression 
exists  is  incidental  and  temporary  ;  their  success  is 
not  sudden  or  fortunate,  but  they  ha,ve  maintained 
constancy  and  self-equality  for  many  ages. 

Is  this  power  due  to  their  race,  or  to  some  other 
cause  ?  Men  hear  gladly  of  the  power  of  blood 
or  race.  Every  body  likes  to  know  that  his  advan 
tages  cannot  be  attributed  to  air,  soil,  sea,  or  to 
local  wealth,  as  mines  and  quarries.,  nor  to  laws 
and  traditions,  nor  to  fortune,  but  to  superior  brain, 
as  it  makes  the  praise  more  personal  to  him. 

We  anticipate  in  the  doctrine  of  race  something 
like  that  law  of  physiology,  that,  whatever  bone, 
muscle,  or  essential  organ  is  found  in  one  healthy 
individual,  the  same  part  or  organ  may  be  found 
in  or  near  the  same  place  in  its  congener  ;  and 
we  look  to  find  in  the  son  every  mental  and  moral 
property  that  existed  in  the  ancestor.  In  race,  it 
is  not  the  broad  shoulders,  or  litheness,  or  stature 


RACE.  53 

that  give  advantage,  but  a  symmetry  that  reaches 
as  far  as  to  the  wit.  Then  the  miracle  and  renown 
begin.  Then  first  we  care  to  examine  the  pedigree, 
and  copy  needfully  the  training,  —  what  food  they 
ate,  what  nursing,  school,  and  exercises  they  had, 
which  resulted  in  this  mother-wit,  delicacy  of 
thought,  and  robust  wisdom.  How  came  such 
men  as  King  Alfred,  and  Roger  Bacon,  William 
of  Wykeham,  Walter  Raleigh,  Philip  Sidney, 
Isaac  Newton,  William  Shakspeare,  George  Chap 
man,  Francis  Bacon,  George  Herbert,  Henry  Vane, 
to  exist  here  ?  What  made  these  delicate  natures  ? 
was  it  the  air  ?  was  it  the  sea  ?  was  it  the  parent 
age  ?  For  it  is  certain  that  these  men  are  samples 
of  their  contemporaries.  The  hearing  ear  is  always 
found  close  to  the  speaking  tongue  ;  and  no  genius 
can  long  or  often  utter  any  thing  which  is  not 
invited  and  gladly  entertained  by  men  around 
him. 

It  is  race,  is  it  not?  that  puts  the  hundred  mil 
lions  of  India  under  the  dominion  of  a  remote 
island  in  the  north  of  Europe.  Race  avails  much, 
if  that  be  true,  which  is  alleged,  that  all  Celts  are 
Catholics,  and  all  Saxons  are  Protestants  ;  that 
Celts  love  unity  of  power,  and  Saxons  the  repre 
sentative  principle.  Race  is  a  controlling  influence 
in  the  Jew,  who,  for  two  millenniums,  under  every 
5* 


54  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

climate,  has  preserved  the  same  character  and  em 
ployments.  Kace  in  the  negro  is  of  appalling 
importance.  The  French  in  Canada,  cut  off  from 
all  intercourse  with  the  parent  people,  have  held 
their  national  traits.  I  chanced  to  read  Tacitus 
tf  on  the  Manners  of  the  Germans,"  not  long  since, 
in  Missouri,  and  the  heart  of  Illinois,  and  I  found 
abundant  points  of  resemblance  between  the  Ger 
mans  of  the  Hercynian  forest,  and  our  Hoosiers, 
Suckers,  and  Badgers  of  the  American  woods. 

OBut  whilst  race  works  immortally  to  keep  its 
own,  it  is  resisted  by  other  forces.  Civilization  is 
a  re-agent,  and  eats  away  the  old  traits.  The  Arabs 
of  to-day  are  the  Arabs  of  Pharaoh  j  but  the  Brit 
on  of  to-day  is  a  very  different  person  from  Cas- 
sibelaunus  or  Ossian.  Each  religious  sect  has  its 
physiognomy.  The  Methodists  have  acquired  a 
face ;  the  Quakers,  a  face  ;  the  nuns,  a  face.  An 
Englishman  will  pick  out  a  dissenter  by  his  man 
ners.  Trades  and  professions  carve  their  own  lines 
on  face  and  form.  Certain  circumstances  of  Eng 
lish  life  are  not  less  effective  ;  as,  personal  liberty  ; 
plenty  of  food ;  good  ale  and  mutton ;  open  mar 
ket,  or  good  wages  for  every  kind  of  labor ;  high 
bribes  to  talent  and  skill ;  the  island  life,  or  the 
million  opportunities  and  outlets  for  expanding 
and  misplaced  talent;  readiness  of  combination 


RACE.  55 

among  themselves  for  politics  or  for  business , 
strikes ;  and  sense  of  superiority  founded  on  habit 
of  victory  in  labor  and  in  war ;  and  the  appetite 
for  superiority  grows  by  feeding. 

It  is  easy  to  add  to  the  counteracting  forces  to 
race.  Credence  is  a  main  element.  'Tis  said,  that 
the  views  of  nature  held  by  any  people  determine 
all  their  institutions.  Whatever  influences  add  to 
mental  or  moral  faculty,  take  men  out  of  nation 
ality,  as  out  of  other  conditions,  and  make  the 
national  life  a  culpable  compromise. 

These  limitations  of  the  formidable  doctrine  of 
race  suggest  others  which  threaten  to  undermine 
it,  as  not  sufficiently  based.  The  fixity  or  incon- 
vertibleness  of  races  as  we  see  them,  is  a  weak 
argument  for  the  eternity  of  these  frail  boundaries, 
since  all  our  historical  period  is  a  point  to  the  du 
ration  in  which  nature  has  wrought.  Any  the 
least  and  solitariest  fact  in  our  natural  history,  such 
as  the  melioration  of  fruits  and  of  ani'mal  stocks, 
has  the  worth  of  a  power  in  the  opportunity  of 
geologic  periods.  Moreover,  though  we  flatter  the 
self-love  of  men  and  nations  by  the  legend  of  pure 
races,  all  our  experience  is  of  the  gradation  and 
resolution  of  races,  and  strange  resemblances  meet 
us  every  where.  It  need  not  puzzle  us  that  Ma 
lay  and  Papuan,  Celt  and  Roman,  Saxon  and  Tar- 


56  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

tar  should  mix,  when  we  see  the  rudiments  of  tiger 
and  baboon  in  our  human  form,  and  know  that 
the  barriers  of  races  are  not  so  firm,  but  that 
some  spray  sprinkles  us  from  the  antediluvian  seas. 

The  low  organizations  are  simplest ;  a  mere 
mouth,  a  jelly,  or  a  straight  worm.  As  the  scale 
mounts,  the  organizations  become  complex.  We 
are  piqued  with  pure  descent,  but  nature  loves 
inoculation.  A  child  blends  in  his  face  the  faces 
of  both  parents,  and  some  feature  from  every  an 
cestor  whose  face  hangs  on  the  wall.  The  best 
nations  are  those  most  widely  related  ;  and  nav 
igation,  as  effecting  a  world-wide  mixture,  is  the 
most  potent  advancer  of  nations. 

The  English  composite  character  betrays  a  mixed 
origin.  Every  thing  English  is  a  fusion  of  dis 
tant  and  antagonistic  elements.  The  language  is 
mixed ;  the  names  of  men  are  of  different  nations, 
—  three  languages,  three  or  four  nations  ;  —  the 
currents  of  thought  are  counter :  contemplation  and 
practical  skill ;  active  intellect  and  dead  conserva 
tism  ;  world-wide  enterprise,  and  devoted  use  and 
wont ;  aggressive  freedom  and  hospitable  law,  with 
bitter  class-legislation ;  a  people  scattered  by  their 
wars  and  affairs  over  the  face  of  the  whole  earth, 
and  homesick  to  a  man  ;  a  country  of  extremes,  — 
dukes  and  chartists,  Bishops  of  Durham  ancj 


RACE.  57 

naked  heathen  colliers ;  —  nothing  can  be  praised 
in  it  without  damning  exceptions,  and  nothing  de 
nounced  without  salvos  of  cordial  praise. 

Neither  do  this  people  appear  to  be  of  one  stem  ; 
but  collectively  a  better  race  than  any  from  which 
they  are  derived.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  trace  it  home 
to  its  original  seats.  Who  can  call  by  right  names 
what  races  are  in  Britain  ?  Who  can  trace  them 
historically  ?  Who  can  discriminate  them  anatom 
ically,  or  metaphysically  ? 

In  the  impossibility  of  arriving  at  satisfaction  on 
the  historical  question  of  race,  and,  —  come  of 
whatever  disputable  ancestry,  —  the  indisputable 
Englishman  before  me,  himself  very  well  marked, 
and  nowhere  else  to  be  found,  —  I  fancied  I  could 
leave  quite  aside  the  choice  of  a  tribe  as  his  lineal 
progenitors.  Defoe  said  in  his  wrath,  "  the  Eng 
lishman  was  the  mud  of  all  races."  I  incline  to 
the  belief,  that,  as  water,  lime,  and  sand  make 
mortar,  so  certain  temperaments  marry  well,  and, 
by  well-managed  contrarieties,  develop  as  drastic 
a  character  as  the  English.  On  the  whole,  it  is 
not  so  much  a  history  of  one  or  of  certain  tribes  of 
Saxons,  Jutes,  or  Frisians,  coming  from  one  place, 
and  genetically  identical,  as  it  is  an  anthology  of 
temperaments  out  of  them  all.  Certain  tempera 
ments  suit  the  sky  and  soil  of  England,  say  eight 


58  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

or  ten  or  twenty  varieties,  as,  out  of  a  hundred 
pear-trees,  eight  or  ten  suit  the  soil  of  an  orchard, 
and  thrive,  whilst  all  the  unadapted  temperaments 
die  out. 

The  English  derive  their  pedigree  from  such  a 
range  of  nationalities,  that  there  needs  sea-room 
and  land-room  to  unfold  the  varieties  of  talent  and 
character.  Perhaps  the  ocean  serves  as  a  galvanic 
battery  to  distribute  acids  at  one  pole,  and  alkalies 
at  the  other.  So  England  tends  to  accumulate  her 
liberals  in  America,  and  her  conservatives  at  Lon 
don.  The  Scandinavians  in  her  race  still  hear  in 
every  age  the  murmurs  of  their  mother,  the  ocean  ; 
the  Briton  in  the  blood  hugs  the  homestead  still. 

Again,  as  if  to  intensate  the  influences  that  are 
not  of  race,  what  we  think  of  when  we  talk  of 
English  traits  really  narrows  itself  to  a  small  dis 
trict.  It  excludes  Ireland,  and  Scotland,  and  Wales, 
and  reduces  itself  at  last  to  London,  that  is,  to 
those  who  come  and  go  thither.  The  portraits  that 
hang  on  the  walls  in  the  Academy  Exhibition  at 
London,  the  figures  in  Punch's  drawings  of  the 
public  men,  or  of  the  club-houses,  the  prints  in 
the  shop-windows,  are  distinctive  English,  and  not 
American,  no,  nor  Scotch,  nor  Irish  :  but  'tis  a 
very  restricted  nationality.  As  you  go  north  into 
the  manufacturing  and  agricultural  districts,  and  to 


RACE.  59 

the  population  that  never  travels,  as  you  go  into 
Yorkshire,  as  you  enter  Scotland,  the  world's  Eng 
lishman  is  no  longer  found.  In  Scotland,  there  is 
a  rapid  loss  of  all  grandeur  of  mien  and  manners ; 
a  provincial  eagerness  and  acuteness  appear;  the 
poverty  of  the  country  makes  itself  remarked, 
and  a  coarseness  of  manners  ;  and,  among  the  in 
tellectual,  is  the  insanity  of  dialectics.  In  Ireland, 
are  the  same  climate  and  soil  as  in  England,  but  less 
food,  no  right  relation  to  the  land,  political  de 
pendence,  small  tenantry,  and  an  inferior  or  mis 
placed  race. 

These  queries  concerning  ancestry  and  blood 
may  be  well  allowed,  for  there  is  no  prosperity 
that  seems  more  to  depend  on  the  kind  of  man 
than  British  prosperity.  Only  a  hardy  and  wise 
people  could  have  made  this  small  territory  great. 
We  say,  in  a  regatta  or  yacht-race,  that  if  the  boats 
are  anywhere  nearly  matched,  it  is  the  man  that 
wins.  Put  the  best  sailing  master  into  either  boat, 
and  he  will  win. 

Yet  it  is  fine  for  us  to  speculate  in  face  of 
unbroken  traditions,  though  vague,  and  losing  them 
selves  in  fable.  The  traditions  have  got  footing, 
and  refuse  to  be  disturbed.  The  kitchen-clock  is 
more  convenient  than  sidereal  time.  We  must 
use  the  popular  category,  as  we  do  by  the  Linnaean 


6*0  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

classification,  for  convenience,  and  not  as  exact  and 
final.  Otherwise,  we  are  presently  confounded, 
when  the  best  settled  traits  of  one  race  are  claimed 
by  some  new  ethnologist  as  precisely  characteristic 
of  the  rival  tribe. 

I  found  plenty  of  well-marked  English  types, 
the  ruddy  complexion  fair  and  plump,  robust  men, 
with  faces  cut  like  a  die,  and  a  strong  island  speech 
and  accent ;  a  Norman  type,  with  the  complacency 
that  belongs  to  that  constitution.  Others,  who 
might  be  Americans,  for  any  thing  that  appeared 
in  their  complexion  or  form  :  and  their  -speech 
was  much  less  marked,  and  their  thought  much 
less  bound.  We  will  call  them  Saxons.  Then 
the  Roman  has  implanted  his  dark  complexion  in 
the  trinity  or  quaternity  of  bloods. 


1 .  The  sources  from  which  tradition  derives  their 
stock  are  mainly  three.  And,  first,  they  are  of 
the  oldest  blood  of  the  world,  —  the  Celtic.  Some 
peoples  are  deciduous  or  transitory.  Where  are 
the  Greeks  ?  where  the  Etrurians  ?  where  the 
Romans  ?  But  the  Celts  or  Sidonides  are  an  old 
family,  of  whose  beginning  there  is  no  memory, 
and  their  end  is  likely  to  be  still  more  remote  in 
the  future ;  for  they  have  endurance  and  produc- 


RACE.  Gl 

tiveness.  They  planted  Britain,  and  gave  to  the 
seas  and  mountains  names  which  are  poems,  and 
imitate  the  pure  voices  of  nature.  They  are  favor 
ably  remembered  in  the  oldest  records  of  Europe. 
They  had  no  violent  feudal  tenure,  but  the  hus 
bandman  owned  the  land.  They  had  an  alphabet, 
astronomy,  priestly  culture,  and  a  sublime  creed. 
They  have  a  hidden  and  precarious  genius.  They 
made  the  best  popular  literature  of  the  middle  ages 
in  the  sono;s  of  Merlin,  and  the  tender  and  deli- 

O  * 

cious  mythology  of  Arthur. 

2.  The  English  come  mainly  from  the  Germans, 
whom  the  Romans  found  hard  to   conquer  in  two 
hundred  and  ten  years,  —  say,  impossible  to   con 
quer,  —  when  one  remembers  the  long  sequel ;  a 
people  about  whom,  in  the  old  empire,  the  rumor 
ran,  there  was  never  any  that  meddled  with  them 
that  repented  it  not. 

3.  Charlemagne,  halting   one  day  in  a  town  of 
Narbonnese  Gaul,  looked  out  of  a  window,  and  saw 
a  fleet  of  Northmen  cruising  in  the  Mediterranean. 
They  even  entered  the  port  of  the  town  where  he 
was,  causing  no  small  alarm  and  sudden  manning 
and  arming  of  his  galleys.     As  they  put  out  to 
sea  again,  the  emperor  gazed  long  after  them,  his 
eyes  bathed  in  tears.      "  I  am  tormented  with  sor 
row/'  he  said,  "  when  I  foresee  the  evils  they  will 

6 


62  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

bring  on  my  posterity."  There  was  reason  for 
these  Xerxes'  tears.  The  men  who  have  built 
a  ship  and  invented  the  rig,  —  cordage,  sail,  com 
pass,  and  pump,  —  the  working  in  and  out  of 
port,  have  acquired  much  more  than  a  ship. 
Now  arm  them,  and  every  shore  is  at  their  mercy. 
For,  if  they  have  not  numerical  superiority  where 
they  anchor,  they  have  only  to  sail  a  mile  or  two 
to  find  it.  Bonaparte's  art  of  war,  namely  of  con 
centrating  force  on  the  point  of  attack,  must  always 
be  theirs  who  have  the  choice  of  the  battle-ground. 
Of  course  they  come  into  thexfight  from  a  higher 
ground  of  power  than  the  land-nations  ;  and  can 
engage  them  on  shore  with  a  victorious  advantage 
in  the  retreat.  As  soon  as  the  shores  are  sufficient-, 
ly  peopled  to  make  piracy  a  losing  business,  the 
same  skill  and  courage  are  ready  for  the  service  of 
trade. 

The  HeimsJcringla*  or  Sagas  of  the  Kings  of 
Norway,  collected  by  Snorro  Sturleson,  is  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  of  English  history.  Its  portraits, 
like  Homer's,  are  strongly  individualized.  The 
Sagas  describe  a  monarchical  republic  like  Sparta. 
The  government  disappears  before  the  importance 
of  citizens.  In  Norway,  no  Persian  masses  fight 

*  Heimskringla.    Translated  by  Samuel  Laing,  Esq.    London. 
1844. 


RACE.  63 

and  perish  to  aggrandize  a  king,  but  the  actors  are 
bonders  or  landholders,  every  one  of  whom  is 
named  and  personally  and  patronymically  de 
scribed,  as  the  king's  friend  and  companion.  A 
sparse  population  gives  this  high  worth  to  every  man. 
Individuals  are  often  noticed  as  very  handsome  per 
sons,  which  trait  only  brings  the  story  nearer  to  the 
English  race.  Then  the  solid  material  interest 
predominates,  so  dear  to  English  understanding, 
wherein  the  association  is  logical,  between  merit 
and  land.  The  heroes  of  the  Sagas  are  not  the 
knights  of  South  Europe.  No  vaporing  of  France 
and  Spain  has  corrupted  them.  They  are  substan 
tial  formers,  whom  the  rough  times  have  forced  to 
defend  their  properties.  They  have  weapons  which 
they  use  in  a  determined  manner,  by  no  means  for 
chivalry,  but  for  their  acres.  They  are  people 
considerably  advanced  in  rural  arts,  living  amphib 
iously  on  a  rough  coast,  and  drawing  half  their 
food  from  the  sea,  and  half  from  the  land.  They 
have  herds  of  cows,  and  malt,  wheat,  bacon,  butter, 
and  cheese.  They  fish  in  the  fiord,  and  hunt  the 
deer.  A  king  among  these  farmers  has  a  varying 
power,  sometimes  not  exceeding  the  authority  of 
a  sherifT.  A  king  was  maintained  much  as,  in 
some  of  our  country  districts,  a  winter-schoolmas 
ter  is  quartered,  a  week  here,  a  week  there,  and 


64  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

a  fortnight  on  the  next  farm,  —  on  all  the  farm 
ers  in  rotation.  This  the  king  calls  going  into 
guest-quarters  ;  and  it  was  the  only  way  in  which, 
in  a  poor  country,  a  poor  king,  with  many  retainers, 
could  be  kept  alive,  when  he  leaves  his  own  farm 
to  collect  his  dues  through  the  kingdom. 

These  Norsemen  are  excellent  persons  in  the 
main,  with  good  sense,  steadiness,  wise  speech,  and 
prompt  action.  But  they  have  a  singular  turn  for 
homicide  ;  their  chief  end  of  man  is  to  murder,  or 
to  be  murdered  ;  oars,  scythes,  harpoons,  crowbars, 
peatknives,  and  hayforks,  are  tools  valued  by 
them  all  the  more  for  their  charming  aptitude  for 
assassinations.  A  pair  of  kings,  after  dinner,  will 
divert  themselves  by  thrusting  each  his  sword 
through  the  other's  body,  as  did  Yngve  and  Alf. 
Another  pair  ride  out  on  a  morning  for  a  frolic, 
and,  finding  no  weapon  near,  will  take  the  bits  out 
of  their  horses'  mouths,  and  crush  each  other's 
heads  with  them,  as  did  Alric  and  Eric.  The  sight 
of  a  tent-cord  or  a  cloak-string  puts  them  on  hang 
ing  somebody,  a  wife,  or  a  husband,  or,  best  of  all, 
a  king.  If  a  farmer  has  so  much  as  a  hayfork, 
he  sticks  it  into  a  King  Dag.  King  Ingiald  finds  it 
vastly  amusing  to  burn  up  half  a  dozen  kings  in  a 
hall,  after  getting  them  drunk.  Never  was  poor 
gentleman  so  surfeited  with  life,  so  furious  to  be 


RACE.  65 

rid  of  it,  as  the  Northman.  If  he  cannot  pick 
any  other  quarrel,  he  will  get  himself  comfortably 
gored  by  a  bull's  horns,  like  Egil,  or  slain  by  a 
land-slide,  like  the  agricultural  King  Onund.  Odin 
died  in  his  bed,  in  Sweden ;  but  it  was  a  proverb 
of  ill  condition,  to  die  the  death  of  old  age.  King 
Hake  of  Sweden  cuts  and  slashes  in  battle,  as  long 
as  he  can  stand,  then  orders  his  war-ship,  loaded 
with  his  dead  men  and  their  weapons,  to  be  taken 
out  to  sea,  the  tiller  shipped,  and  the  sails  spread ; 
being  left  alone,  he  sets  fire  to  some  tar-wood,  and 
lies  down  contented  on  deck.  The  wind  blew  off 
the  land,  the  ship  flew  burning  in  clear  flame, 
out  between  the  islets  into  the  ocean,  and  there 
was  the  right  end  of  King  Hake. 

The  early  Sagas  are  sanguinary  and  piratical ; 
the  later  are  of  a  noble  strain.  History  rarely 
yields  us  better  passages  than  the  conversation  be 
tween  King  Sigurd  the  Crusader,  and  King  Eystein, 
his  brother,  on  their  respective  merits,  —  one,  the 
soldier,  and  the  other,  a  lover  of  the  arts  of  peace. 

But  the  reader  of  the  Norman  history  must 
steel  himself  by  holding  fast  the  remote  compen 
sations  which  result  from  animal  vigor.  As  the 
old  fossil  world  shows  that  the  first  steps  of  reduc 
ing  the  chaos  were  confided  to  saurians  and  other 
huge  and  horrible  animals,  so  the  foundations  of 
6* 


66  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

the  new  civility  were  to  be  laid  by  the  most  savage 
men. 

The  Normans  came  out  of  France  into  England 
,  worse  men  than  they  went  into  it,  one  hundred  and 
sixty  years  before.  They  had  lost  their  own  lan 
guage,  and  learned  the  Romance  or  barbarous  Latin 
of  the  Gauls  ;  and  had  acquired,  with  the  language, 
all  the  vices  it  had  names  for.  The  conquest  has  ob 
tained  in  the  chronicles,  the  name  of  the  "  memory 
of  sorrow."  Twenty  thousand  thieves  landed  at 
Hastings.  These  founders  of  the  House  of  Lords 
were  greedy  and  ferocious  dragoons,  sons  of  greedy 
and  ferocious  pirates.  They  were  all  alike,  they 
took  every  thing  they  could  carry,  they  burned, 
harried,  violated,  tortured,  and  killed,  until  every 
thing  English  was  brought  to  the  verge  of  ruin. 
Such,  however,  is  the  illusion  of  antiquity  and 
wealth,  that  decent  and  dignified  men  now  exist 
ing  boast  their  descent  from  these  filthy  thieves, 
who  showed  a  far  juster  conviction  of  their  own 
merits,  by  assuming  for  their  types  the  swine, 
goat,  jackal,  leopard,  wolf,  and  snake,  which  they 
severally  resembled. 

England  yielded  to  the  Danes  and  Northmen  in 
the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  and  was  the  re 
ceptacle  into  which  all  the  mettle  of  that  strenuous 
population  was  poured.  The  continued  draught  of 


RACE.  67 

the  best  men  in  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Denmark,  to 
these  piratical  expeditions,  exhausted  those  coun 
tries,  like  a  tree  which  bears  much  fruit  when 
young,  and  these  have  been  second-rate  powers 
ever  since.  The  power  of  the  race  migrated,  and 
left  Norway  void.  King  Olaf  said,  et  When  King 
Harold,  my  father,  went  westward  to  England,  the 
chosen  men  in  Norway  followed  him :  but  Nor 
way  was  so  emptied  then,  that  such  men  have  not 
since  been  to  find  in  the  country,  nor  especially 
such  a  leader  as  King  Harold  was  for  wisdom  and 
bravery." 

It  was  a  tardy  recoil  of  these  invasions,  when, 
in  1801,  the  British  government  sent  Nelson  to 
bombard  the  Danish  forts  in  the  Sound ;  and,  in 
1807,  Lord  Cathcart,  at  Copenhagen,  took  the  en 
tire  Danish  fleet,  as  it  lay  in  the  basins,  and  all  the 
equipments  from  the  Arsenal,  and  carried  them  to 
England.  Konghelle,  the  town  where  the  kings 
of  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Denmark  were  wont  to 
meet,  is  now  rented  to  a  private  English  gentleman 
for  a  hunting  ground. 

It  took  many  generations  to  trim,  and  comb,  and 
perfume  the  first  boat-load  of  Norse  pirates  into 
royal  highnesses  and  most  noble  Knights  of  the 
Garter :  but  every  sparkle  of  ornament  dates  back 
to  the  Norse  boat.  There  will  be  time  enough  to 


68  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

mellow  this  strength  into  civility  and  religion.  It 
is  a  medical  fact,  that  the  children  of  the  blind  see ; 
the  children  of  felons  have  a  healthy  conscience. 
Many  a  mean,  dastardly  boy  is,  at  the  age  of  pu 
berty,  transformed  into  a  serious  and  generous 
youth. 

The  mildness  of  the  following  ages  has  not  quite 
effaced  these  traits  of  Odin ;  as  the  rudiment  of  a 
structure  matured  in  the  tiger  is  said  to  be  still  found 
unabsorbed  in  the  Caucasian  man.  The  nation  has  a 
tough,  acrid,  animal  nature,  which  centuries  of 
churching  and  civilizing  have  not  been  able  to 
sweeten.  Alfieri  said,  "  the  crimes  of  Italy  were 
the  proof  of  the  superiority  of  the  stock ; "  and  one 
may  say  of  England,  that  this  watch  moves  on  a  splin 
ter  of  adamant.  The  English  uncultured  are  a  brutal 
nation.  The  crimes  recorded  in  their  calendars  leave 
nothing  to  be  desired  in  the  way  of  cold  malignity. 
Dear  to  the  English  heart  is  a  fair  stand-up  fight. 
The  brutality  of  the  manners  in  the  lower  class 
appears  in  the  boxing,  bear-baiting,  cock-fighting, 
love  of  executions,  and  in  the  readiness  for  a  set-to 
in  the  streets,  delightful  to  the  English  of  all 
classes.  The  costermongers  of  London  streets 
hold  cowardice  in  loathing :  —  "  we  must  work  our 
fists  well ;  we  are  all  handy  with  our  fists."  The 
public  schools  are  charged  with  being  bear-gardens 


RACE.  69 

of  brutal  strength,  and  are  liked  by  the  people  for 
that  cause.  The  fagging  is  a  trait  of  the  same  qual 
ity.  Medwin,  in  the  Life  of  Shelley,  relates,  that, 
at  a  military  school,  they  rolled  up  a  young  man  in 
a  snowball,  and  left  him  so  in  his  room,  while  the 
other  cadets  went  to  church  ;  —  and  crippled  him 
for  life.  They  have  retained  impressment,  deck- 
flogging,  army-flogging,  and  school-flogging.  Such 
is  the  ferocity  of  the  army  discipline,  that  a  soldier 
sentenced  to  flogging,  sometimes  prays  that  his 
sentence  may  be  commuted  to  death.  Flogging 
banished  from  the  armies  of  Western  Europe,  re 
mains  here  by  the  sanction  of  the  Duke  of  "Wel 
lington.  The  right  of  the  husband  to  sell  the  wife 
has  been  retained  down  to  our  times.  The  Jews 
have  been  the  favorite  victims  of  royal  and  popu 
lar  persecution.  Henry  III.  mortgaged  all  the 
Jews  in  the  kingdom  to  his  brother,  the  Earl  of 
Cornwall,  as  security  for  money  which  he  borrowed. 
The  torture  of  criminals,  and  the  rack  for  extort 
ing  evidence,  were  slowly  disused.  Of  the  crim 
inal  statutes,  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  said,  "  I  have 
examined  the  codes  of  all  nations,  and  ours  is  the 
worst,  and  worthy  of  the  Anthropophagi."  In 
the  last  session,  the  House  of  Commons  was  listen 
ing  to  details  of  flogging  and  torture  practised  in 
vhe  jails. 


70  ENGLISH    TllAITS. 

As  soon  as  this  land,  thus  geographically  posted, 
got  a  hardy  people  into  it,  they  could  not  help 
becoming  the  sailors  and  factors  of  the  globe. 
From  childhood,  they  dabbled  in  water,  they  swum 
like  fishes,  their  playthings  were  boats.  In  the 
case  of  the  ship-money,  the  judges  delivered  it  for 
law,  that  "  England  being  an  island,  the  very  mid 
land  shires  therein  are  all  to  be  accounted  mari 
time  :  "  and  Fuller  adds,  "  the  genius  even  of 
landlocked  counties  driving  the  natives  with  a 
maritime  dexterity."  As  early  as  the  conquest,  it 
is  remarked  in  explanation  of  the  wealth  of  Eng 
land,  that  its  merchants  trade  to  all  countries. 

The  English,  at  the  present  day,  have  great 
vigor  of  body  and  endurance.  Other  countrymen 
look  slight  and  undersized  beside  them,  and  inva 
lids.  They  are  bigger  men  than  the  Americans. 
I  suppose  a  hundred  English  taken  at  random  oi;t 
of  the  street,  would  weigh  a  fourth  more,  than  so 
many  Americans.  Yet,  I  am  told,  the  skeleton  is 
not  larger.  They  are  round,  ruddy,  and  hand 
some  ;  at  least,  the  whole  bust  is  well  formed  : 
and  there  is  a  tendency  to  stout  and  powerful 
frames.  I  remarked  the  stoutness,  on  my  first 
landing  at  Liverpool ;  porter,  drayman,  coach 
man,  guard, — what  substantial,  respectable,  grand- 
fatherly  figures,  with  costume  and  manners  to 


RACE.  71 

suit.  The  American  has  arrived  at  the  old 
mansion-house,  and  finds  himself  among  uncles, 
aunts,  and  grandsires.  The  pictures  on  the  chim 
ney-tiles  of  his  nursery  were  pictures  of  these 
people.  Here  they  are  in  the  identical  costumes 
and  air,  which  so  took  him. 

It  is  the  fault  of  their  forms  that  they  grow 
stocky,  and  the  women  have  that  disadvantage,  — 
few  tall,  slender  figures  of  flowing  shape,  but 
stunted  and  thickset  persons.  The  French  say, 
that  the  Englishwomen  have  two  left  hands.  But, 
in  all  ages,  they  are  a  handsome  race.  The  bronze 
monuments  of  crusaders  lying  cross-legged,  in  the 
Temple  Church  at  London,  and  those  in  Worces 
ter  and  in  Salisbury  Cathedrals,  which  are  seven 
hundred  years  old,  are  of  the  same  type  as  the  best 
youthful  heads  of  men  now  in  England  ;  —  please 
by  beauty  of  the  same  character,  an  expression 
blending  goodnature,  valor,  and  refinement,  and, 
mainly,  by  that  uncorrupt  youth  in  the  face  of  man 
hood,  which  is  daily  seen  in  the  streets  of  London. 

Both  branches  of  the  Scandinavian  race  are  dis 
tinguished  for  beauty.  The  anecdote  of  the  hand 
some  captives  which  Saint  Gregory  found  at  Rome, 
A.  D.  600,  is  matched  by  the  testimony  of  the 
Norman  chroniclers,  five  centuries  later,  who  won 
dered  at  the  beauty  and  long  flowing  hair  of  the 


72  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

young  English,  captives.  Meantime,  the  Heims- 
kringla  has  frequent  occasion  to  speak  of  the  per 
sonal  beauty  of  its  heroes.  When  it  is  considered 
what  humanity,  what  resources  of  mental  and 
moral  power,  the  traits  of  the  blonde  race  betoken, 
—  its  accession  to  empire  marks  a  new  and  finerv 
epoch,  wherein  the  old  mineral  force  shall  be  sub 
jugated  at  last  by  humanity,  and  shall  plough  in 
its  furrow  henceforward.  It  is  not  a  final  race/ 
once  a  crab  always  crab,  but  a  race  with  a  future. 

On  the  English  face  are  combined  decision  and 
nerve,  with  the  fair  complexion,  blue  eyes,  and 
open  and  florid  aspect.  Hence  the  love  of  truth, 
hence  the  sensibility,  the  fine  perception,  and  poetic 
construction.  The  fair  Saxon  man,  with  open  front, 
and  honest  meaning,  domestic,  affectionate,  is  not 
the  wood  out  of  which  cannibal,  or  inquisitor,  or 
assassin  is  made,  but  he  is  moulded  for  law,  law 
ful  trade,  civility,  marriage,  the  nurture  of  chil 
dren,  for  colleges,  churches,  charities,  and  colonies. 

They  are  rather  manly  than  warlike.  When  the 
war  is  over,  the  mask  falls  from  the  affectionate 
and  domestic  tastes,  which  make  them  women  in 
kindness.  This  union  of  qualities  is  fabled  in 
their  national  legend  of  Beauty  and  the  Beast,  or, 
long  before,  in  the  Greek  legend  of  Hermaphro 
dite.  The  two  sexes  are  co-present  in  the  Eng- 


RACE.  73 

lisli  mind.  I  apply  to  Britannia,  queen'  of  seas 
and  colonies,  the  words  in  which  her  latest  novelist 
portrays  his  heroine :  "  she  is  as  mild  as  she  is 
game,  and  as  game  as  she  is  mild."  The  English, 
delight  in  the  antagonism  which  combines  in  one 
person  the  extremes  of  courage  and  tenderness 
Nelson,  dying  at  Trafalgar,  sends  his  love  to  Lord 
Collingwood,  and,  like  an  innocent  schoolboy  that 
goes  to  bed,  says,  "  Kiss  me,  Hardy,"  and  turns  to 
sleep.  Lord  Collingwood,  his  comrade,  was  of  a 
nature  the  most  affectionate  and  domestic.  Ad 
miral  Rodney's  figure  approached  to  delicacy  and 
effeminacy,  and  he  declared  himself  very  sensible 
to  fear,  which  he  surmounted  only  by  considera 
tions  of  honor  and  public  duty.  Clarendon 
says,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  was  so  modest  and 
gentle,  that  some  courtiers  attempted  to  put  affronts 
on  him,  until  they  found  that  this  modesty  and 
effeminacy  was  only  a  mask  for  the  most  terrible 
determination.  And  Sir  Edward  Parry  said,  the 
other  day,  of  Sir  John  Franklin,  that,  "  if  he  found 
Wellington  Sound  open,  he  explored  it ;  for  he  was 
a  man  who  never  turned  his  back  on  a  danger,  yet 
of  that  tenderness,  that  he  would  not  brush  away 
a  mosquito."  Even  for  their  highwaymen  the 
same  virtue  is  claimed,  and  Robin  Hood  comes 
described  to  us  as  mitissimus  pradonum,  the  gen- 
7 


74  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

tlest  thief.  But  they  know  where  their  war- 
dogs  lie.  Cromwell,  Blake,  Marlborough,  Chat 
ham,  Nelson,  and  Wellington,  are  not  to  be  trifled 
with,  ^and  the  brutal  strength  which  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  society,  the  animal  ferocity  of  the  quays 
and  cockpits,  the  bullies  of  the  co^tarmongers  of 
Shoreditch,  Seven  Dials,  and  Spitalfields,  they 
know  how  to  wake  up. 

They  have  a  vigorous  health,  and  last  well  into 
middle  and  old  age.  The  old  men  are  as  red  as 
roses,  and  still  handsome.  A  clear  skin,  a  peach- 
bloom  complexion,  and  good  teeth,  are  found  aU 
over  the  island.  They  use  a  plentiful  and  nutri 
tious  diet.  The  operative  cannot  subsist  on  water- 
cresses.  Beef,  mutton,  wheatbread,  and  malt- 
liquors,  are  universal  among  the  first-class  laborers. 
Good  feeding  is  a  chief  point  of  national  pride 
among  the  vulgar,  and,,  in  their  caricatures,  they 
represent  the  Frenchman  as  a  poor,  starved  body. 
It  is  curious  that  Tacitus  found  the  English  beer 
already  in  use  among  the  Germans  :  "  they  make 
from  barley  or  wheat  a  drink  corrupted  into  some 
resemblance  to  wine."  Lord  Chief  Justice  For- 
tescue  in  Henry  VI.'s  time,  says,  "  The  inhabitants 
of  England  drink  no  water,  unless  at  certain  times, 
on  a  religious  score,  and  by  way  of  penance." 
The  extremes  of  poverty  and  ascetic  penance,  it 


RACE. 


would  seem,  never  reach  cold  water  in  England. 
Wood,  the  antiquary,  in  describing  the  poverty 
and  maceration  of  Father  Lacey,  an  English  Jesuit, 
does  not  deny  him  beer.  He  says,  "his  bed  was 
under  a  thatching,  and  the  way  to  it  up  a  ladder  \ 
his  fare  was  coarse ;  his  drink,  of  a  penny  a  gawn, 
or  gallon." 

They  have  more  constitutional  energy  than  any 
other  people.  They  think,  with  Henri  Quatre, 
that  manly  exercises  are  the  foundation  of  that 
elevation  of  mind  which  gives  one  nature  ascendant 
over  another ;  or,  with  the  Arabs,  that  the  days 
spent  in  the  chase  are  not  counted  in  the  length 
of  life.  They  box,  run,  shoot,  ride,  row,  and  sail 
from  pole  to  pole.  They  eat,  and  drink,  and  live 
jolly  in  the  open  air,  putting  a  bar  of  solid  sleep 
between  day  and  day.  They  walk  and  ride  as  fast 
is  they  can,  their  head  bent  forward,  as  if  urged 
on  some  pressing  affair.  The  French  say,  that 
Englishmen  in  the  street  always  walk  straight  be 
fore  them  like  mad  dogs.  Men  and  women  walk 
with  infatuation.  As  soon  as  he  can  handle  a  gun, 
hunting  is  the  fine  art  of  every  Englishman  of 
condition.  They  are  the  most  voracious  people  of 
prey  that  ever  existed.  Every  season  turns  out  the 
aristocracy  into  the  country,  to  shoot  and  fish. 
The  more  vigorous  run  out  of  the  island  to  Eu« 


76  •        ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

rope,  to  America,  to  Asia,  to  Africa,  and  Aus 
tralia,  to  hunt  with  fury  by  gun,  by  trap,  by 
harpoon,  by  lasso,  with  dog,  with  horse,  with  ele 
phant,  or  with  dromedary,  all  the  game  that  is  in 
nature.  These  men  have  written  the  game-books 
of  all  countries,  as  Hawker,  Scrope,  Murray,  Her 
bert,  Maxwell,  Gumming,  and  a  host  of  travellers. 
The  people  at  home  are  addicted  to  boxing,  run 
ning,  leaping,  and  rowing  matches. 

I  suppose,  the  dogs  and  horses  must  be  thanked 
for  the  fact,  that  the  men  have  muscles  almost  as 
tough  and  supple  as  their  own.  If  in  every  effi 
cient  man,  there  is  first  a  fine  animal,  in  the  Eng 
lish  race  it  is  of  the  best  breed,  a  wealthy,  juicy, 
broad-chested  creature,  steeped  in  ale  and  good 
cheer,  and  a  little  overloaded  by  his  flesh.  Men 
of  animal  nature  rely,  like  animals,  on  their  in 
stincts.  The  Englishman  associates  well  with 
dogs  and  horses.  His  attachment  to  the  horse 
arises  from  the  courage  and  address  required  to 
manage  it.  The  horse  finds  out  who  is  afraid  of 
it,  and  does  not  disguise  its  opinion.  Their 
young  boiling  clerks  and  lusty  collegians  like  the 
company  of  horses  better  than  the  company  of 
professors.  I  suppose,  the  horses  are  better  com 
pany  for  them.  The  horse  has  more  uses  than 
Buffon  noted.  If  you  go  into  the  streets,  every 


77 


driver  in  bus  or  dray  is  a  bully,  and,  if  I  wanted  a 
good  troop  of  soldiers,  I  should  recruit  among  the 
stables.  Add  a  certain  degree  of  refinement  to 
the  vivacity  of  these  riders,  and  you  obtain  the 
precise  quality  which  makes  the  men  and  women 
of  polite  society  formidable. 

They  come  honestly  by  their  horsemanship,  with 
Hengst  and  Horsa  for  their  Saxon  founders.  The 
other  branch  of  their  race  had  been  Tartar  nomads. 
The  horse  was  all  their  wealth.  The  children  were 
fed  on  mares'  milk.  The  pastures  of  Tartary 
were  still  remembered  by  the  tenacious  practice  of 
the  Norsemen  to  eat  horseflesh  at  religious  feasts. 
In  the  Danish  invasions,  the  marauders  seized 
upon  horses  where  they  landed,  and  were  at  once 
converted  into  a  body  of  expert  cavalry. 

At  one  time,  this  skill  seems  to  have  declined. 
Two  centuries  ago,  the  English  horse  never  per 
formed  any  eminent  service  beyond  the  seas  ; 
and  the  reason  assigned,  was,  that  the  genius^of 
the  English  hath  always  more  inclined  them  to  foot- 
service,  as  pure  and  proper  manhood,  without  any 
mixture ;  whilst,  in  a  victory  on  horseback,  the 
credit  ought  to  be  divided  betwixt  the  man  and 
his  horse.  But  in  two  hundred  years,  a  change 
has  taken  place.  Now,  they  boast  that  they  un 
derstand  horses  better  than  any  other  people 
7* 


78  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

in   the   world,  and  that   their   horses   are   become 
their  second  selves. 

"  William  the  Conqueror  being,"  says  Camden, 
"  better  affected  to  beasts  than  to  men,  imposed 
heavy  fines  and  punishments  on  those  that  should 
meddle  with  his  game."  The  Saxon  Chronicle 
says,  "  he  loved  the  tall  deer  as  if  he  were  their 
father."  And  rich  Englishmen  have  followed  his 
example,  according  to  their  ability,  ever  since,  in 
encroaching  on  the  tillage  and  commons  with  their 
game-preserves.  It  is  a  proverb  in  England, 
that  it  is  safer  to  shoot  a  man,  than  a  hare.  The 
severity  of  the  game-laws  certainly  indicates  an  ex 
travagant  sympathy  of  the  nation  with  horses  and 
hunters.  The  gentlemen  are  always  on  horseback, 
and  have  brought  horses  to  an  ideal  perfection,  — 
the  English  racer  is  a  factitious  breed.  A  score 
or  two  of  mounted  gentlemen  may  frequently 
be  seen  running  like  centaurs  down  a  hill  nearly 
as  steep  as  the  roof  of  a  house.  Every  inn-room 
is  lined  with  pictures  of  races  ;  telegraphs  com 
municate,  every  hour,  tidings  of  the  heats  from 
Newmarket  and  Ascot :  and  the  House  of  Com 
mons  adjourns  over  the  '  Derby  Day.' 


CHAPTER    V. 

ABILITY. 

THE  Saxon  and  the  Northman  are  both  Scandi 
navians.      History   does  not   allow   us    to   fix    the 
limits   of  the  application  of  these  names  with  any 
accuracy ;    but  from  the  residence  of  a  portion  of 
these  people  in  France,  and  from  some  effect  of  that 
powerful  soil  on  their  blood  and  manners,  the  Nor-; 
man  has  come  popularly  to  represent  in  England  \ 
the   aristocratic,  —  and  the  Saxon  the  democratic 
principle.     And  though,  I  doubt  not,  the  nobles  I 
are  of  both  tribes,  and  the  workers   of  both,  yet  j 
we  are  forced  to  use  the  names  a  little  mythically,  I 
one    to  represent  the  worker,  and   the   other  the  / 
enjoyer. 

»•  The  island  was  a  prize  for  the  best  race.  Each 
of  the  dominant  races  tried  its  fortune  in  turn. 
The  Phoenician,  the  Celt,  and  the  Goth,  had  already 
got  in.  The  Roman  came,  but  in  the  very  day 
when  his  fortune  culminated.  He  looked  in  the 
eyes  of  a  new  people  that  was  to  supplant  his  own, 

(79) 


80  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

He  disembarked  his  legions,  erected  his  camps  and 
towers,  —  presently  he  heard  bad  news  from  Italy, 
and  worse  and  worse,  every  year ;  at  last,  he  made 
a  handsome  compliment  of  roads  and  walls,  and 
departed.  But  the  Saxon  seriously  settled  in  the 
land,  builded,  tilled,  fished,  and  traded,  with  Ger 
man  truth  and  adhesiveness.  The  Dane  came,  and 
divided  with  him.  Last  of  all,  the  Norman,  or 
.French-Dane,  arrived,  and  formally  conquered, 
harried  and  ruled  the  kingdom.  A  century  later, 
it  came  out,  that  the  Saxon  had  the  most  bottom 
and  longevity,  had  managed  to  make  the  victor 
speak  the  language  and  accept  the  law  and  usage 
of  the  victim ;  forced  the  baron  to  dictate  Saxon 
terms  to  Norman  kings  ;  and,  step  by  step,  got  all 
the  essential  securities  of  civil  liberty  invented  and 
confirmed.  The  genius  of  the  race  and  the  genius 
of  the  place  conspired  to  this  effect.  The  island 
is  lucrative  to  free  labor,  but  not  worth  possession 
on  other  terms.  The  race  was  so  intellectual,  that 
a  feudal  or  military  tenure  could  not  last  longer 
than  the  war.  The  power  of  the  Saxon-Danes,  so 
thoroughly  beaten  in  the  war,  that  the  name  of 
English  and  villein  were  synonymous,  yet  so  viva 
cious  as  to  extort  charters  from  the  kings,  stood 
on  the  strong  personality  of  these  people.  Sense 
and  economy  must  rule  in  a  world  which  is  made 


ABILITY.  81 

of  sense  and  economy,  and  the  banker,  with  his 
seven  per  cent,  drives  the  earl  out  of  his  castle. 
A  nobility  of  soldiers  cannot  keep  down  a  com 
monalty  of  shrewd  scientific  persons.  What 
signifies  a  pedigree  of  a  hundred  links,  against  a 
cotton-spinner  with  steam  in  his  mill ;  or,  against  a 
company  of  broad-shouldered  Liverpool  merchants, 
for  whom  Stephenson  and  Brunei  are  contriving 
locomotives  and  a  tubular  bridge  ? 

These  Saxons  are  the  hands  of  mankind.  They 
have  the  taste  for  toil,  a  distaste  for  pleasure  or  re 
pose,  and  the  telescopic  appreciation  of  distant  gain. 
They  are  the  wealth-makers} —  and  by  dint  of 
mental  faculty,  which  has  its  own  conditions.  The 
Saxon  works  after  liking,  or,  only  for  himself;  and 
to  set  him  at  work,  and  to  begin  to  draw  his  mon 
strous  values  out  of  barren  Britain,  all  dishonor, 
fret,  and  barrier  must  be  removed,  and  then  his 
energies  begin  to  play. 

The  Scandinavian  fancied  himself  surrounded 
by  Trolls,  —  a  kind  of  goblin  men,  with  vast 
power  of  work  and  skilful  production,  —  divine 
stevedores,  carpenters,  reapers,  smiths,  and  masons, 
swift  to  reward  every  kindness  done  them,  with 
gifts  of  gold  and  silver.  In  all  English  history, 
this  dream  comes  to  pass.  Certain  Trolls  or  work 
ing  brains,  under  the  names  of  Alfred,  Bede,  Cax- 


82  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

ton,  Bracton,  Camden,  Drake,  Selden,  Dugdale, 
Newton,  Gibbon,  Brindley,  Watt,  Wedgwood, 
dwell  in  the  troll-mounts  of  Britain,  and  turn  the 
sweat  of  their  face  to  power  and  renown. 

If  the  race  is  good,  so  is  the  place.  Nobody 
landed  on  this  spellbound  island  with  impunity. 
The  enchantments  of  barren  shingle  and  rough 
weather,  transformed  every  adventurer  into  a  la 
borer.  Each  vagabond  that  arrived  bent  his  neck 
to  the  yoke  of  gain,  or  found  the  air  too  tense  for 
him.  The  strong  survived,  the  weaker  went  to 
the  ground.  Even  the  pleasure-hunters  and  sots 
of  England  are  of  a  tougher  texture.  A  hard 
temperament  had  been  formed  by  Saxon  and  Saxon- 
Dane,  and  such  of  these  French  or  Normans  as 
could  reach  it,  were  naturalized  in  every  sense. 

All  the  admirable  expedients  or  means  hit  upon 
in  England,  must  be  looked  at  as  growths  or  irre 
sistible  offshoots  of  the  expanding  mind  of  the  race. 
A  man  of  that  brain  thinks  and  acts  thus ;  and  his 
neighbor,  being  afflicted  with  the  same  kind  of 
brain,  though  he  is  rich,  and  called  a  baron,  or  a 
duke,  thinks  the  same  thing,  and  is  ready  to 
allow  the  justice  of  the  thought  and  act  in  his  re 
tainer  or  tenant,  though  sorely  against  his  baronial 
,or  ducal  will. 

The  island  was   renowned   in  antiquity  for  its 


ABILITY.  83 

breed  of  mastiffs,  so  fierce,  that,  when  their  teeth 
were  set,  you  must  cut  their  heads  off  to  part  them. 
The  man  was  like  his  dog.  The  people  have  that 
nervous  bilious  temperament,  which  is  known  by 
medical  men  to  resist  every  means  employed*  to 
make  its  possessor  subservient  to  the  will  of  others. 
The  English  game  is  main  force  to  main  force,  the 
planting  of  foot  to  foot,  fair  play  and  open  field,  — 
a  rough  tug  without  trick  or  dodging,  till  one  or 
both  come  to  pieces.  King  Ethelwald  spoke  the 
language  of  his  race,  when  he  planted  himself  at 
Wimborne,  and  said,  '  he  would  do  one  of  two 
things,  or  there  live,  or  there  lie.'  They  hate  , 
craft  and  subtlety.  They  neither  poison,  nor  way 
lay,  nor  assassinate  ;  and,  when  they  have  pounded 
each  other  to  a  poultice,  they  will  shake  hands  and 
be  friends  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives. 

You  shall  trace  these  Gothic  touches  at  school, 
at  country  fairs,  at  the  hustings,  and  in  parliament. 
No  artifice,  no  breach  of  truth  and  plain  dealing,  \ 
—  not  so  much  as  secret  ballot,  is  suffered  in  the 
island.  In  parliament,  the  tactics  of  the  opposition 
is  to  resist  every  step  of  the  government,  by  a 
pitiless  attack :  and  in  a  bargain,  no  prospect  of 
advantage  is  so  dear  to  the  merchant,  as  the  thought 
of  being  tricked  is  mortifying. 

Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  a   courtier  of  Charles   and 


84  ENGLISU    THAU'S. 

James,  who  won  the  sea-fight  of  Scanderoon,  waa 
a  model  Englishman  in  his  day.  "  His  person  was 
handsome  and  gigantic,  he  had  so  graceful  elocu 
tion  and  noble  address,  that,  had  he  been  dropt  out 
of  the  clouds  in  any  part  of  the  world,  he  would 
have  made  himself  respected:  he  was  skilled  in 
six  tongues,  and  master  of  arts  and  arms."  *  Sir 
Kenelm  wrote  a  book,  "  Of  Bodies  and  of  Souls," 
in  which  he  propounds,  that  "  syllogisms  do  breed 
or  rather  are  all'  the  variety  of  man's  life.  They 
are  the  steps  by  which  we  walk  in  all  our '  busi 
nesses.  Man,  as  he  is  man,  doth  nothing  else  but 
weave  such  chains.  Whatsoever  he  doth,  swarving 
from  this  work,  he  doth  as  deficient  from  the  na 
ture  of  man :  and,  if  he  do  aught  beyond  this,  by 
breaking  out  into  divers  sorts  of  exterior  actions, 
he  findeth,  nevertheless,  in  this  linked  sequel  of 
simple  discourses,  the  art,  the  cause,  the  rule,  the 
bounds,  and  the  model  of  it."  f 

There  spoke  the  genius  of  the  English  people. 
There  is  a  necessity  on  them  to  be  logical.  They 
would  hardly  greet  the  good  that  did  not  logically 
fall,  —  as  if  it  excluded  their  own  merit,  or  shook 
their  understandings.  They  are  jealous  of  minds 
that  have  much  facility  of  association,  from  an  in 
stinctive  fear  that  the  seeing  many  relations  to  their 

*  Antony  Wood.  f  Man's  Soule,  p.  29. 


ABILITY.  85 

thought  might  impair  this  serial  continuity  and 
lucrative  concentration.  They  are  impatient  of 
genius,  or  of  minds  addicted  to  contemplation,  and 
cannot  conceal  their  contempt  for  sallies  of  thought, 
however  lawful,  whose  steps  they  cannot  count  by 
their  wonted  rule.  Neither  do  they  reckon  better 
a  syllogism  that  ends  in  syllogism.  For  they  have 
a  supreme  eye  to  facts,  and  theirs  is  a  logic  that 
brings  salt  to  soup,  hammer  to  nail,  oar  to  boat, 
the  logic  of  cooks,  carpenters,  and  chemists,  fol 
lowing  the  sequence  of  nature,  and  one  on  which 
words  make  no  impression.  Their  mind  is  not 
dazzled  by  its  own  means,  but  locked  and  bolted 
to  results.  They  love  men,  who,  like  Samuel  John 
son,  a  doctor  in  the  schools,  would  jump  out  of 
his  syllogism  the  instant  his  major  proposition  was 
in  danger,  to  save  that,  at  all  hazards.  Their  prac 
tical  vision  is  spacious,  and  they  can  hold  many 
threads  without  entangling  them.  All  the  steps\ 
they  orderly  take  ;  but  with  the  high  logic  of  never 
confounding  the  minor  and  major  proposition ; 
keeping  their  eye  on  their  aim,  in  all  the  complicity1 
and  delay  incident  to  the  several  series  of  means 
they  employ.  There  is  room  in  their  minds  for 
this  and  that,  —  a  science  of  degrees.  In  the  ^ 
courts,  the  independence  of  the  judges  and  the 
loyalty  of  the  suitors  are  equally  excellent.  In 
8 


86  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Parliament,  they  have  hit  on  that  capital  inven 
tion  of  freedom,  a  constitutional  opposition.  And 
when  courts  and  parliament  are  both  deaf,  the 
plaintiff  is  not  silenced.  Calm,  patient,  his  weapon 
of  defence  from  year  to  year  is  the  obstinate  repro 
duction  of  the  grievance,  with  calculations  and  es 
timates.  But,  meantime,  he  is  drawing  numbers 
and  money  to  his  opinion,  resolved  that  if  all  rem 
edy  fails,  right  of  revolution  is  at  the  bottom  of 
his  charter-box.  They  are  bound  to  see  their 
measure  carried,  and  stick  to  it  through  ages  of 
defeat. 

Into  this  English  logic,  however,  an  infusion 
of  justice  enters,  not  so  apparent  in  other  races, 
—  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  two  sides,  and  the 
resolution  to  see  fair  play.  *  There  is  on  every 
question,  an  appeal  from  the  assertion  of  the 
parties,  to  the  proof  of  what  is  asserted.  They 
are  impious  in  their  scepticism  of  a  theory,  but 
kiss  the  dust  before  a  fact.  Is  it  a  machine,  is  it 
a  charter,  is  it  a  boxer  in  the  ring,  is  it  a  candidate 
on  the  hustings,  —  the  universe  of  Englishmen 
will  suspend  their  judgment,  until  the  trial  can  be 
had.  They  are  not  to  be  led  by  a  phrase,  they  want 
a  working  plan,  a  working  machine,  a  working 
constitution,  and  will  sit  out  the  trial,  and  abide  by 
the  issue,  and  reject  all  preconceived  theories.  In 


ABILITY.  87 

politics  they  put  blunt  questions,  which  must  be 
answered ;  who  is  to  pay  the  taxes  ?  wrhat  will  you 
do  for  trade  ?  what  for  corn  ?  what  for  the  spinner  ? 

This  singular  fairness  and  its  results  strike  the 
French  with  surprise.  Philip  de  Commines  says, 
"  Now,  in  my  opinion,  among  all  the  sovereignties 
I  know  in  the  world,  that  in  which  the  public  good 
is  best  attended  to,  and  the  least  violence  exer 
cised  on  the  people,  is  that  of  England."  Life  is 
safe,  and  personal  rights  ;  and  what  is  freedom, 
without  security  ?  whilst,  in  France,  f  fraternity,' 
e  equality,'  and  f  indivisible  unity,'  are  names  for 
assassination.  Montesquieu  said,  "  England  is  the 
freest  country  in  the  world.  If  a  man  in  England 
had  as  many  enemies  as  hairs  on  his  head,  no  harm 
would  happen  to  him." 

Their  self-respect,  their  faith  in  causation,  and 
their  realistic  logic  or  coupling  of  means  to  ends,  have 
given  them  the  leadership  of  the  modern  world. 
Montesquieu  said,  "  No  people  have  true  common 
sense  but  those  who  are  born  in  England."  This 
common  sense  is  a  perception  of  all  the  conditions 
of  our  earthly  existence,  of  laws  that  can  be  stated, 
and  of  laws  that  cannot  be  stated,  or  that  are  learned 
only  by  practice,  in  which  allowance  for  friction  is 
made.  They  are  impious  in  their  scepticism  of 
theory,  and  in  high  departments  they  are  cramped 


88  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

and  sterile.  But  the  unconditional  surrender  to 
facts,  and  the  choice  of  means  to  reach  their  ends, 
are  as  admirable  as  with  ants  and  bees. 
*The  bias  of  the  nation  is  a  passion  for  utility 
They  love  the  lever,  the  screw,  and  pulley,  the 
Flanders  draught-horse,  the  waterfall,  wind-mills., 
tide-mills ;  the  sea  and  the  wind  to  bear  thei  r 
freight  ships.  More  than  the  diamond  Koh-i-noor, 
which  glitters  among  their  crown  jewels,  they  prize 
that  dull  pebble  which  is  wiser  than  a  man, 
whose  poles  turn  themselves  to  the  poles  of  the 
world,  and  whose  axis  is  parallel  to  the  axis  of 
the  world.  Now,  their  toys  are  steam  and  galvan 
ism.  They  are  heavy  at  the  fine  arts,  but  adroit 
at  the  coarse ;  not  good  in  jewelry  or  mosaics,  but 
the  best  iron-masters,  colliers,  wool-combers,  and 
tanners,  in  Europe.*"  They  apply  themselves  to 
agriculture,  to  draining,  to  resisting  encroachments 
of  sea,  wind,  travelling  sands,  cold  and  wet  sub 
soil  ;  to  fishery,  to  manufacture  of  indispensable 
staples, —  salt,  plumbago,  leather,  wool,  glass,  pot 
tery,  and  brick,  —  to  bees  and  silkworms  ;  —  and 
by  their  steady  combinations  they  succeed.  A 
manufacturer  sits  down  to  dinner  in  a  suit  of  clothes 
which  was  wool  on  a  sheep's  back  at  sunrise.  You 
dine  with  a  gentleman  on  venison,  pheasant,  quail, 
pigeons,  poultry,  mushrooms,  and  pine-apples,  all 


ABILITY.  89 

the  growth  of  his  estate.  They  are  neat  husbands 
for  ordering  all  their  tools  pertaining  to  house  and 
field.  All  are  well  kept.  There  is  no  want  and 
no  waste.  They  study  use  and  fitness  in  their 
building,  in  the  order  of  their  dwellings,  and  in 
their  dress,  (the  Frenchman  invented  the  ruffle, 
the  Englishman  added  the  shirt.  The  Englishman 
wears  a  sensible  coat  buttoned  to  the  chin,  of  rough 
but  solid  and  lasting  texture.  If  he  is  a  lord,  he 
dresses  a  little  worse  than  a  commoner.  They 
have  diffused  the  taste  for  plain  substantial  hats, 
shoes,  and  coats  through  Europe.  They  think  him 
the  best  dressed  man,  whose  dress  is  so  fit  for  his  use 
that  you  cannot  notice  or  remember  to  describe  it. 

They  secure  the  essentials  in  their  diet,  in  their' 
arts,  and  manufactures.  Every  article  of  cutlery 
shows,  in  its  shape,  thought  and  long  experience 
of  workmen.  They  put  the  expense  in  the  right 
place,  as,  in  their  sea-steamers,  in  the  solidity  of 
the  machinery  and  the  strength  of  the  boat.  The 
admirable  equipment  of  their  arctic  ships  carries 
London  to  the  pole.  They  build  roads,  aqueducts, 
warm  and  ventilate  houses.  And  they  have  im- ' 
pressed  their  directness  and  practical  habit  on  mod 
ern  civilization. 

In  trade,  the  Englishman  believes  that  nobody 
breaks  who  ought   not   to  break  ;  and,  that,  if  he 


90  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

do  not  make  trade  every  thing,  it  will  make  him 
nothing  ;  and  acts  on  this  belief.  The  spirit  of 
system,,  attention  to  details,  and  the  subordination 
of  details,  or,  the  not  driving  things  too  finely, 
(which  is  charged  on  the  Germans,)  constitute  that 
despatch  of  business,  which  makes  the  mercantile 
s  power  of  England. 

In  war,  the  Englishman  looks  to  his  means.  He 
is  of  the  opinion  of  Civilis,  his  German  ancestor, 
whom  Tacitus  reports  as  holding  "  that  the  gods 
are  on  the  side  of  the  strongest ; "  —  a  sentence 
which  Bonaparte  unconsciously  translated,  when 
he  said,  <f  that  he  had  noticed,  that  Providence 
always  favored  the  heaviest  battalion."  Their  mil 
itary  science  propounds  that  if  the  weight  of  the 
advancing  column  is  greater  than  that  of  the  resist 
ing,  the  latter  is  destroyed.  Therefore  Welling 
ton,  when  he  came  to  the  army  in  Spain,  had 
every  man  weighed,  first  with  accoutrements,  and 
then  without ;  believing  that  the  force  of  an 
army  depended  on  the  weight  and  power  of  the 
in  dividual  soldiers,  in  spite  of  cannon.  Lord 
Palmerston  told  the  House  of  Commons,  that  more 
care  is  taken  of  the  health  and  comfort  of  English 
troops  than  of  any  other  troops  in  the  world ;  and 
that,  hence  the  English  can  put  more  men  into  the 
rank,  on  the  day  of  action,  on  the  field  of  battle, 


ABILITY.  91 

than  any  other  army.  Before  the  bombardment 
of  the  Danish  forts  in  the  Baltic,  Nelson  spent  day 
after  day,  himself  in  the  boats,  on  the  exhausting 
service  of  sounding  the  channel.  Clerk  of  Eldin's 
celebrated  manoeuvre  of  breaking  the  line  of  sea- 
battle,  and  Nelson's  feat  of  doubling,  or  stationing 
his  ships  one  on  the  outer  bow,  and  another  on  the 
outer  quarter  of  each  of  the  enemy's  were  only  trans 
lations  into  naval  tactics  of  Bonaparte's  rule  of  con 
centration.  Lord  Collingwood  was  accustomed  to 
tell  his  men,  that,  if  they  could  fire  three  well-direct 
ed  broadsides  in  five  minutes,  no  vessel  could  resist 
them ;  and,  from  constant  practice,  they  came  to 
do  it  in  three  minutes  and  a  half.  • 

But  conscious  that  no  race  of  better  men  exists, 
they  rely  most  on  the  simplest  means ;  and  do  not 
like  ponderous  and  difficult  tactics,  but  delight  to 
bring  the  affair  hand  to  hand,  where  the  victory  lies 
with  the  strength,  courage,  and  endurance  of  the 
individual  combatants.  They  adopt  every  improve 
ment  in  rig,  in  motor,  in  weapons,  but  they  fun 
damentally  believe  that  the  best  stratagem  in  naval 
war,  is  to  lay  your  ship  close  alongside  of  the  ene 
my's  ship,  and  bring  all  your  guns  to  bear  on  him, 
until  you  or  he  go  to  the  bottom.  This  is  the  'old 
fashion,  which  never  goes  out  of  fashion,  neither 
in  nor  out  of  England. 


92  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

It  is  not  usually  a  point  of  honor,  nor  a  reli 
gious  sentiment,  and  never  any  whim  that  they  will 
shed  their  blood  for  ;  but  usually  property,  and 
right  measured  by  property,  that  breeds  revolu 
tion.  They  have  no  Indian  taste  for  a  tomahawk- 
dance,  no  French  taste  for  a  badge  or  a  proclama 
tion.  The  Englishman  is  peaceably  minding  his 
business,  and  earning  his  day's  wages.  But  if  you 
offer  to  lay  hand  on  his  day's  wages,  on  his  cow, 
or  his  right  in  common,  or  his  shop,  he  will  fight 
to  the  Judgment.  Magna-charta,  jury-trial,  ha- 
beas-corpus,  star-chamber,  ship-money,  Popery, 
Plymouth-colony,  American  Revolution,  are  all 
questions  involving  a  yeoman's  right  to  his  dinner, 
and,  except  as  touching  that,  would  not  have  lashed 
the  British  nation  to  rage  and  revolt. 

Whilst  they  are  thus  instinct  with  a  spirit  of 
order,  and  of  calculation,  it  must  be  owned  they 
are  capable  of  larger  views ;  but  the  indulgence  is 
expensive  to  them,  costs  great  crises,  or  accumu 
lations  of  mental  power.  In  common,  the  horse 
works  best  with  blinders.  Nothing  is  more  in  the 
line  of  English  thought,  than  our  unvarnished 
Connecticut  question,  "  Pray,  sir,  how  do  you  get 
your  living  when  you  are  at  home  ?  "  The  ques 
tions  of  freedom,  of  taxation,  of  privilege,  are  money 
questions.  Heavy  fellows,  steeped  in  beer  and 


ABILITY.  98 

fleshpots,  they  are  hard  of  hearing  and  dim  of  sight. 
Their  drowsy  minds  need  to  be  flagellated  by  wai 
and  trade  and  politics  and  persecution.  '  They 
cannot  well  read  a  principle,  except  by  the  light  of 
fagots  and  of  burning  towns. 

Tacitus  says  of  the  Germans,  "  powerful  only  in 
sudden  efforts,  they  are  impatient  of  toil  and  labor." 
This  highly- destined  race,  if  it  had  not  somewhere 
added  the  chamber  of  patience  to  its  brain,  would 
not  have  built  London.  I  know  not  from  which 
of  the  tribes  and  temperaments  that  went  to  the 
composition  of  the  people  this  tenacity  was  sup 
plied,  but  they  clinch  every  nail  they  drive.  They 
have  no  running  for  luck,  and  no  immoderate 
speed.  They  spend  largely  on  their  fabric,  aiic!\ 
await  the  slow  return.  Their  leather  lies  tanning- '" 
seven  years  in  the  vat.  At  Kogers's  mills,  in 
Sheffield,  where  I  was  shown  the  process  of  making 
a  razor  and  a  penknife,  I  was  told  there  is  no  luck 
in  making  good  steel ;  that  they  make  no  mistakes, 
every  blade  in  the  hundred  and  in  the  thousand  is 
good.  And  that  is  characteristic  of  all  their  work, 
—  no  more  is  attempted  than  is  done. 

When  Thor  and  his  companions  arrive  at  Utgard, 
he  is  told  that  "  nobody  is  permitted  to  remain 
here,  unless  he  understand  some  art,  and  excel  in 
it  all  other  men."  The  same  question  is  still  put 


94  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

to  the  posterity  of  Thor.  A  nation  of  laborers, 
every  man  is  trained  to  some  one  art  or  detail,  and 
aims  at  perfection  in  that ;  not  content  unless  he 
has  something  in  which  he  thinks  he  surpasses  all 
other  men.  He  would  rather  not  do  any  thing  at 
till,  than  not  do  it  well.  I  suppose  no  people  have 
such  thoroughness  ;  —  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  every  man  meaning  to  be  master  of  his  art. 
"  To  show  capacity,"  a  Frenchman  described  as 
the  end  of  a  speech  in  debate  :  t(  no/'  said  an 
Englishman,  "  but  to  set  your  shoulder  at  the 
wheel,  —  to  advance  the  business."  Sir  Samuel 
Romilly  refused  to  speak  in  popular  assemblies, 
confining  himself  to  the  House  of  Commons,  where 
a  measure  can  be  carried  by  a  speech.  The  busi 
ness  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  conducted  by  a 
few  persons,  but  these  are  hard-worked.  Sir  Rob 
ert  Peel  "knew  the  Blue  Books  by  heart."  His 
colleagues  and  rivals  carry  Hansard  in  their  heads. 
The  high  civil  and  legal  offices  are  not  beds  of  ease, 
but  posts  which  exact  frightful  amounts  of  mental 
labor.  Many  of  the  great  leaders,  like  Pitt,  Can 
ning,  Castlereagh,  Romilly,  are  soon  worked  to 
death.  They  are  excellent  judges  in  England  of  a 
good  worker,  and  when  they  find  one,  like  Claren 
don,  Sir  Philip  Warwick,  Sir  William  Coventry, 
Ashley,  Burke,  Thurlow,  Mansfield,  Pitt,  Eldon, 


ABILITY.  95 

Peel,  or  Russell,  there  is  nothing  top  good  or  too 
high  for  him. 

They  have  a  wonderful  heat  in  the  pursuit  of  a 
public  aim.  Private  persons  exhibit,  in  scientific 
and  antiquarian  researches,  the  same  pertinacity  as 
the  nation  showed  in  the  coalitions  in  which  it  yoked 
Europe  against  the  empire  of  Bonaparte,  one  after 
the  other  defeated,  and  still  renewed,  until  the  sixth 
hurled  him  from  his  seat. 

Sir  John  Herschel,  in  completion  of  the  work 
of  his  father,  who  had  made  the  catalogue  of  the 
stars  of  the  northern  hemisphere,  expatriated  him 
self  for  years  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  finished 
his  inventory  of  the  southern  heaven,  came  home, 
and  redacted  it  in  eight  years  more;  —  a  work 
whose  value  does  not  begin  until  thirty  years  have 
elapsed,  and  thenceforward  a  record  to  all  ages  of 
the  highest  import.  The  Admiralty  sent  out  the 
Arctic  expeditions  year  after  year,  in  search  of  Sir 
John  Franklin,  until,*  at  last,  they  have  threaded 
their  way  through  polar  pack  and  Behring's  Straits, 
and  solved  the  geographical  problem.  Lord  Elgin, 
at  Athens,  saw  the  imminent  ruin  of  the  Greek 
remains,  set  up  his  scaffoldings,  in  spite  of  epi 
grams,  and,  after  five  years'  labor  to  collect  them, 
got  his  marbles  on  shipboard.  The  ship  struck  a 
rock,  and  went  to  the  bottom.  He  had  them  all 


06  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

fished  up,  by  divers,  at  a  vast  expense,  and  brought 
to  London  ;  not  knowing  that  Haydon,  Fuseli, 
and  Canova,  and  all  good  heads  in  all  the  world, 
were  to  be  his  applauders.  In  the  same  spirit, 
were  the  excavation  and  research  by  Sir  Charles 
Fellowes,  for  the  Xanthian  monument;  and  of 
Layard,  for  his  Nineveh  sculptures.  ' 

The  nation  sits  in  the  immense  city  they  have 
builded,  a  London  extended  into  every  man's  mind, 
though  he  live  in  Van  Dieman's  Land  or  Capetown. 
Faithful  performance  of  what  is  undertaken  to  be 
performed,  they  honor  in  themselves,  and  exact  in 
others,  as  certificate  of  equality  with  themselves. 
The  modern  world  is  theirs.  They  have  made  and 
make  it  day  by  day.  The  commercial  relations  of 
the  world  are  so  intimately  drawn  to  London,  that 
every  dollar  on  earth  contributes  to  the  strength  of 
the  English  government.  And  if  all  the  wealth 
in  the  planet  should  perish  by  war  or  deluge,  they 
know  themselves  competent  to  replace  it. 

They  have  approved  their  Saxon  blood,  by  their 
sea-going  qualities ;  their  descent  from  Odin's 
smiths,  by  their  hereditary  skill  in  working  in 
iron ;  their  British  birth,  by  husbandry  and  im 
mense  wheat  harvests ;  and  justified  their  occu 
pancy  of  the  centre  of  habitable  land,  by  their 
supreme  ability  and  cosmopolitan  spirit.  They 


ABILITY.  97 

have  tilled,  builded,  forged,  spun,  and  woven. 
They  have  made  the  island  a  thoroughfare;  and 
London  a  shop,  a  law-court,  a  record-office,  and 
scientific  bureau,  inviting  to  strangers;  a  sanctuary 
to  refugees  of  every  political  and  religious  opinion ; 
and  such  a  city,  that  almost  every  active  man,  in 
any  nation,  finds  himself,  at  one  time  or  other, 
forced  to  visit  it. 

In  every  path  of  practical  activity,  they  have 
gone  even  with  the  best.     There  is   no  secret  of  1 
war,  in  which  they  have  not  shown  mastery.     The-/ 
steam-chamber   of   Watt,  the   locomotive   of   Ste- 
phenson,  the  cotton-mule  of  Roberts,  perform  the 
labor  of  the   world.     There  is  no  department  of 
literature,  of  science,  or  of  useful   art,  in   which 
they  have   not  produced  a  first-rate  book.     It  is 
England,  whose  opinion  is  waited  for  on  the  merit 
of  a  new  invention,  an  improved  science.      And  in\ 
the  complications  of  the  trade  and  politics  of  their 
vast  empire,  they  have   been  equal   to  every  exi 
gency,  with  counsel  and  with  conduct.     Is  it  their/ 
luck,  or  is  it  in  the  chambers  of  their  brain,  —  it 
is  their  commercial  advantage,  that  whatever  light 
appears    in    better    method    or    happy    invention, 
breaks  out  in  their  race.     They   are  a  family  to 
which   a   destiny   attaches,    and   the  Banshee    has 
sworn   that   a  male  heir  shall  never  be   wanting. 
9 


98  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

They  have  a  wealth  of  men  to  fill  important  posts, 
and  the  vigilance  of  party  criticism  insures  the 
selection  of  a  competent  person. 


A  proof  of  the  energy  of  the  British  people,  is 
the  highly  artificial  construction  of  the  whole  fabric. 
•The  climate  and  geography,  I  said,  were  factitious, 
as  if  the  hands  of  man  had  arranged  the  conditions. 
The  same  character  pervades  the  whole  kingdom. 
Bacon  said,  "  Rome  was  a  state  not  subject  to  para 
doxes  ; "  but  England  subsists  by  antagonisms  and 
contradictions.  The  foundations  of  its  greatness 
are  the  rolling  waves  ;  and,  from  first  to  last,  it  is 
a  museum  of  anomalies.  This  foggy  and  rainy- 
country  furnishes  the  world  with  astronomical 
observations.  Its  short  rivers  do  not  afford  water- 
power,  but  the  land  shakes  under  the  thunder 
of  the  mills.  There  is  no  gold  mine  of  any 
importance,  but  there  is  more  gold  in  England 
than  in  all  other  countries.  It  is  too  far  north  for 
the  culture  of  the  vine,  but  the  wines  of  all  coun 
tries  are  in  its  docks.  The  French  Comte  de  Lau- 
raguais  said,  "  no  fruit  ripens  in  England  but  a 
baked  apple  "  ;  but  oranges  and  pine-apples  are  as 
cheap  in  London  as  in  the  Mediterranean.  The 
Mark-Lane  Express,  or  the  Custom  House  Returns 
bear  out  to  the  letter  the  vaunt  of  Pope, 


FACTITIOUS.  99 

"  Let  India  boast  her  palms,  nor  envy  we 
The  weeping  amber,  nor  the  spicy  tree, 
While,  by  our  oaks,  those  precious  loads  are  borne, 
And  realms  commanded  which  those  trees  adorn." 


The  native  cattle  are  extinct,  but  the  island  is  full 
of  artificial  breeds.  The  agriculturist  Bakewell, 
created  sheep  and  cows  and  horses  to  order,  and 
breeds  in  which  every  thing  was  omitted  but  what  is 
economical.  The  cow  is  sacrificed  to  her  bag,  the 
ox  to  his  surloin.  Stall-feeding  makes  sperm-mills 
of  the  cattle,  and  converts  the  stable  to  a  chemical 
factory.  The  rivers,  lakes  and  ponds,  too  much 
fished,  or  obstructed  by  factories,  are  artificially 
filled  with  the  eggs  of  salmon,  turbot  and  herring. 
Chat  Moss  and  the  fens  of  Lincolnshire  and  Cam 
bridgeshire  are  unhealthy  and  too  barren  to  pay 
rent.  By  cylindrical  tiles,  and  guttapercha  tubes, 
nve  millions  of  acres  of  bad  land  have  been  drained 
and  put  on  equality  with  the  best,  for  rape-culture 
and  grass.  The  climate  too,  which  was  already 
believed  to  have  become  milder  and  drier  by  the 
enormous  consumption  of  coal,  is  so  far  reached 
by  this  new  action,  that  fogs  and  storms  are  said  to 
disappear.  In  due  course,  all  England  will  be 
drained,  and  rise  a  second  time  out  of  the  waters. 
The  latest  step  was  to  call  in  the  aid  of  steam  to 
agriculture.  Steam  is  almost  an  Englishman.  I  do 


100  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

not  know  but  they  will  send  him  to  Parliament, 
next,  to  make  laws.  He  weaves,  forges,  Saws, 
pounds,  fans,  and  now  he  must  pump,  grind,  dig, 
and  plough  for  the  farmer.  The  markets  created 
by  the  manufacturing  population  have  erected  agri 
culture  into  a  great  thriving  and  spending  indus 
try.  The  value  of  the  houses  in  Britain  is  equal 
to  the  value  of  the  soil.  Artificial  aids  of  all  kindo 
are  cheaper  than  the  natural  resources.  ISTo  man 
can  afford  to  walk,  when  the  parliamentary-trail1, 
carries  him  for  a  penny  a  mile.  Gas-burners  arc 
cheaper  than  daylight  in  numberless  floors  in  the 
cities.  All  the  houses  in  London  buy  their  water. 
The  English  trade  does  not  exist  for  the  exporta 
tion  of  native  products,  but  on  its  manufactures,  or 
the  making  well  every  thing  which  is  ill  made  else 
where.  They  make  ponchos  for  the  Mexican,  baii- 
dannas  for  the  Hindoo,  ginseng  for  the  Chinese, 
beads  for  the  Indian,  laces  for  the  Flemings,  tele 
scopes  for  astronomers,  cannons  for  kings. 

The  Board  of  Trade  caused  the  best  models  of 
Greece  and  Italy  to  be  placed  within  the  reach  of 
every  manufacturing  population.  They  caused  to 
be  translated  from  foreign  languages  and  illustrat 
ed  by  elaborate  drawings,  the  most  approved  works 
of  Munich,  Berlin,  and  Paris.  They  have  ransacked 
Italy  to  find  new  forms,  to  add  a  grace  to  the 


FACTITIOUS.  101 

products  of  their  looms,  their  potteries,  and  their 
foundries.  * 

The  nearer  we  look,  the  more  artificial  is  their 
social  system.  Their  law  is  a  network  of  fictions. 
Their  property,  a  scrip  or  certificate  of  right  to 
interest  on  money  that  no  man  ever  saw.  Their 
social  classes  are  made  by  statute.  Their  ratios  of 
power  and  representation  are  historical  and  legal.  . 
The  last  Reform-bill  took  away  political  power 
from  a  mound,  a  ruin,  and  a  stone-wall,  whilst 
Birmingham  and  Manchester,  whose  mills  paid  for 
the  wars  of  Europe,  had  no  representative.  Pu 
rity  in  the  elective  Parliament  is  secured  by  the' 
purchase  of  seats. f  Foreign  power  is  kept  by 
armed  colonies ;  power  at  home,  by  a  standing 
army  of  police.  The  pauper  lives  better  than  the 
free  laborer ;  the  thief  better  than  the  pauper ; 
and  the  transported  felon  better  than  the  one 
under  imprisonment.  The  crimes  are  factitious, 
as  smuggling,  poaching,  non-conformity,  heresy 
and  treason.  Better,  they  say  in  England,  kill  a 
man  than  a  hare.  The  sovereignty  of  the  seas  is 
maintained  by  the  impressment  of  seamen.  "  The 

*  See  Memorial  of  H.  Greenough,  p.  66,  New  York,  1853. 

f  Sir  S.  Romilly,  purest  of  English  patriots,  decided  that  the 
only  independent  mode  of  entering  Parliament  was  to  buy  a  seat, 
and  he  bought  Horsham. 

9* 


102  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

impressment  of  seamen,"  said  Lord  Eldon,  "  is  the 
life  of  our  navy."  Solvency  is  maintained  by 
means  of  a  national  debt,  on  the  principle,  "if 
you  will  not  lend  me  the  money,  how  can  I  pay 
you?"  For  the  administration  of  justice,  Sir 
Samuel  Romilly's  expedient  for  clearing  the 
arrears  of  business  in  Chancery,  was,  the  Chan 
cellor's  staying  away  entirely  from  his  court. 
Their  system  of  education  is  factitious.  The  Uni 
versities  galvanize  dead  languages  into  a  semblance 
of  life.  Their  church  is  artificial.  The  manners 
and  customs  of  society  are  artificial;  —  made  up 
men  with  made  up  manners  ;  —  and  thus  the  whole 
is  Birminghamized,  and  we  have  a  nation  whose 
existence  is  a  work  of  art ;  —  a  cold,  barren,  almost 
arctic  isle,  being  made  the  most  fruitful,  luxuri 
ous  and  imperial  land  in  the  whole  earth. 

Man  in  England  submits  to  be  a  product  of  po 
litical  economy.  On  a  bleak  moor,  a  mill  is  built, 
a  banking-house  is  opened,  and  men  come  in,  as 
water  in  a  sluice-way,  and  towns  and  cities  rise. 
Man  is  made  as  a  Birmingham  button.  The  rapid 
doubling  of  the  population  dates  from  Watt's  steam- 
engine.  A  landlord,  who  owns  a  province,  says, 
"  the  tenantry  are  unprofitable ;  let  me  have 
sheep."  He  unroofs  the  houses,  and  ships  the 
population  to  America.  The  nation  is  accustomed 


SOLIDARITY.  103 

fco  the  instantaneous  creation  of  wealth.  It  is  the 
maxim  of  their  economists,  "that  the  greater  part 
in  value  of  the  wealth  now  existing  in  England, 
has  "been  produced  by  human  hands  within  the  last 
twelve  months."  Meantime,  three  or  four  days' 
rain  will  reduce  hundreds  to  starving  in  London. 


One  secret  of  their  power  is  their  mutual  good 
understanding.  Not  only  good  minds  are  born 
among  them,  but  all  the  people  have  good  minds. 
Every  nation  has  yielded  some  good  wit,  if,  as  has 
chanced  to  many  tribes,  only  one.  But  the  intel 
lectual  organization  of  the  English  admits  a  commu- 
nicableness  of  knowledge  and  ideas  among  them 
all.  An  electric  touch  by  any  of  their  national 
ideas,  melts  them  into  one  family,  and  brings  the 
hoards  of  power  which  their  individuality  is  always 
hiving,  into  use  and  play  for  all.  Is  it  the  small- 
ness  of  the  country,  or  is  it  the  pride  and  affection 
of  race,  —  they  have  solidarity,  or  responsibleness, 
and  trust  in  each  other. 

Their  minds,  like  wool,  admit  of  a  dye  which  is 
more  lasting  than  the  cloth.  They  embrace  their 
cause  with  more  tenacity  than  their  life.  Though 
not  military,  yet  every  common  subject  by  the  poll 
is  fit  to  make  a  soldier  of.  These  private  reserved 


104  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

mute  family-men  can  adopt  a  public  end  with  all 
their  heat,  and  this  strength  of  affection  makes 
the  romance  of  their  heroes.  The  difference  of 
rank  does  not  divide  the  national  heart.  The 
Danish  poet  Ohlenschlager  complains,  that  who 
writes  in  Danish,  writes  to  two  hundred  readers. 
In  Germany,  there  is  one  speech  for  the  learned, 
and  another  for  the  masses,  to  that  extent,  that,  it 
is  said,  no  sentiment  or  phrase  from  the  works 
of  any  great  German  writer  is  ever  heard  among 
the  lower  classes.  But  in  England,  the  language 
of  the  noble  is  the  language  of  the  poor.  In  Par 
liament,  in  pulpits,  in  theatres,  when  the  speakers 
rise  to  thought  and  passion,  the  language  becomes 
idiomatic  ;  the  people  in  the  street  best  understand 
the  best  words.  And  their  language  seems  drawn 
from  the  Bible,  the  common  law,  and  the  works 
of  Shakspeare,  Bacon,  Milton,  Pope,  Young,  Cow- 
per,  Burns,  and  Scott.  The  island  has  produced 
two  or  three  of  the  greatest  men  that  ever  existed, 
but  they  were  not  solitary  in  their  own  time.  Men 
quickly  embodied  what  Newton  found  out,  in 
Greenwich  observatories,  and  practical  navigation. 
The  boys  know  all  that  Hutton  knew  of  strata,  or 
Dalton  of  atoms,  or  Harvey  of  blood-vessels ;  and 
these  studies,  once  dangerous,  are  in  fashion.  So 
what  is  invented  or  known  in  agriculture,  or  in 


SOLIDARITY.  105 

trade,  or  in  war,  or  in  art,  or  in  literature,  and 
antiquities.  A  great  ability,  not  amassed  on  a  few 
giants,  but  poured  into  the  general  mind,  so  that 
each  of  them  could  at  a  pinch  stand  in  the  shoes 
of  the  other ;  and  they  are  more  bound  in  char 
acter,  than  differenced  in  ability  or  in  rank.  The 
laborer  is  a  possible  lord.  The  lord  is  a  possible 
basket-maker.  Every  man  carries  the  English  sys 
tem  in  his  brain,  knows  what  is  confided  to  him, 
and  does  therein  the  best  he  can.  The  chancellor 
carries  England  on  his  mace,  the  midshipman  at 
the  point  of  his  dirk,  the  smith  on  his  hammer,  the 
cook  in  the  bowl  of  his  spoon ;  the  postilion  cracks 
his  whip  for  England,  and  the  sailor  times  his  oars 
to  "God  save  the  King!"  *+  The  very  felons  have 
their  pride  in  each  other's  English  stanchness. 
In  politics  and  in  war,  they  hold  together  as  by 
hooks  of  steel.  The  charm  in  Nelson's  history, 
is,  the  unselfish  greatness  ;  the  assurance  of  being 
supported  to  the  uttermost  by  those  whom  he  sup 
ports  to  the  uttermost.  "Whilst  they  are  some  ages 
ahead  of  the  rest  of  the  world  in  the  art  of  liv 
ing  ;  whilst  in  some  directions  they  do  not  repre 
sent  the  modern  spirit,  but  constitute  it,  —  this 
vanguard  of  civility  and  power  they  coldly  hold, 
marching  in  phalanx,  lockstep,  foot  after  foot,  file 
after  file  of  heroes,  ten  thousand  deep. 


CHAPTEE     VI. 

MANNERS. 

I  FIND  the  Englishman  to  be  him  of  all  men 
wro  stands  firmest  in  his  shoes.  They  have  in 
themselves  what  they  value  in  their  horses,  mettle 
and  bottom^  On  the  day  of  my  arrival  at  Liver 
pool,  a  gentleman,  in  describing  to  me  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  happened  to  say,  tf  Lord 
Clarendon  has  pluck  like  a  cock,  and  will  fight  till 
he  dies  ;  "  and,  what  I  heard  first  I  heard  last,  and 
the  one  thing  the  English  value,  is  pluck.  The 
cabmen  have  it ;  the  merchants  have  it ;  the  bishops 
have  it ;  the  women  have  it ;  the  journals  have  it ; 
the  Times  newspaper,  they  say,  is  the  pluckiest 
thing  in  England,  and  Sydney  Smith  had  made  it 
a  proverb,  that  little  Lord  John  Russell,  the  min 
ister,  would  take  the  command  of  the  Channel 
fleet  to-morrow. 

They  require  you  to  dare  to  be  of  your  own 
opinion,  and  they  hate  the  practical  cowards  who 
cannot  in  affairs  answer  directly  yes  or  no.  They 

(106) 


MANNERS.  107 

dare  to  displease,  nay,  they  will  let  you  break  all 
the  commandments,  if  you  do  it  natively,  and  withe-- 
spirit.      You  must  be  somebody  ;   then  you  may 
do  this  or  that,  as  you  will. 

Machinery  has  been  applied  to  all  work,  and 
carried  to  such  perfection,,  that  little  is  left  for  the 
men  but  to  mind  the  engines  and  feed  the  furnaces. 
But  the  machines  require  punctual  service,  and, 
as  they  never  tire,  they  prove  too  much  for  their 
tenders.  Mines,  forges,  mills,  breweries,  railroads, 
steampnmp,  steamplough,  drill  of  regiments,  drill 
of  police,  rule  of  court,  and  shop-rule,  have  op 
erated  to  give  a  mechanical  regularity  to  all  the 
habit  and  action  of  men.  A  terrible  machine  has 
possessed  itself  of  the  ground,  the  air,  the  men 
and  women,  and  hardly  even  thought  is  free. 

,  The  mechanical  might  and  organization  requires 
in  the  people  constitution   and  answering  spirits : 
and  he   who   goes  among  them  must  have   some 
weight    of   metal.     At   last,  you  take    your    hint ' 
from  the  fury  of  life  you  find,  and  say,  one  thing 
is  plain,  this  is  no  country  for  fainthearted  people : 
don't  creep  about  diffidently;  make  up  your  mind; 
take  your  own  course,  and  you  shall  find  respect  . 
and  furtherance. 

It  requires,  men  say,  a  good  constitution  to  travel 
in  -Spain  I  say  as  much  of  England,  for  other 


108  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

cause,  simply  on  account  of  the  vigor  and  brawn 
of  the  people.  Nothing  but  the  most  serious 
business,  could  give  one  any  counterweight  to 
these  J>J3£jesarks,  though  they  were  only  to  order 
eggs  and  muffins  for  their  breakfast.  The  Eng 
lishman  speaks  with  all  his  body.  His  elocution 
is  stomachic,  —  as  the  American's  is  labial.  The 
Englishman  is  very  petulant  and  precise  about  his 
^accommodation  at  inns,  and  on  the  roads  ;  a  quid- 
die  about  his  toast  and  his  chop,  and  every  species 
of  convenience,  and  loud  and  pungent  in  his  ex 
pressions  of  impatience  at  any  neglect.  His  vi 
vacity  betrays  itself,  at  all  points,  in  his  manners, 
in  his  respiration,  and  the  inarticulate  noises  he 
makes  in  clearing  the  throat ;  —  all  significant  of 
burly  strength.  He  has  stamina  ;  he  can  take  the 
initiative  in  emergencies.  He  has  that  aplomb, 
which  results  from  a  good  adjustment  of  the  mor 
al  and  physical  nature,  and  the  obedience  of  all 
the  powers  to  the  will ;  as  if  the  axes  of  •  his  eyes 
were  united  to  his  backbone,  and  only  moved  with 
the  trunk. 

^•O 

This  vigor  appears  in  the  incuriosity,  and  stony 
neglect,  each  of  every  other.  Each  man  walks,  eats, 
drinks,  shaves,  dresses,  gesticulates,  and,  in  every 
manner,  acts,  and  suffers  without  reference  to  the  by 
standers,  in  his  own  fashion,  only  careful  not  to  inter- 


MANNERS.  109 

fere  with  them,  or  annoy  them  ;  not  that  he  is  trained 
to  neglect  the  eyes  of  his  neighbors,  —  he  is  really 
occupied  with  his  own  affair,  and  does  not  think  of 
them.  Every  man  in  this  polished  country  consults 
only  his  convenience,  as  much  as  a  solitary  pioneer  in 
Wisconsin.  I  know  not  where  any  personal  eccen 
tricity  is  so  freely  allowed,  and  no  man  gives  him 
self  any  concern  with  it.  An  Englishman  walks  in 
a  pouring  rain,  swinging  his  closed  umbrella  like  a 
walking-stick  ;  wears  a  wig,  or  a  shawl,  or  a  sad 
dle,  or  stands  on  his  head,  and  no  remark  is  made. 
And  as  he  has  been  doing  this  for  several  genera 
tions,  it  is  now  in  the  blood. 

In  short,  every  one  of  these  islanders  is  an  island 
himself,  safe,  tranquil,  incommunicable.  In  a 
company  of  strangers,  you  would  think  him  deaf ; 
his  eyes  never  wander  from  his  table  and  news 
paper.  He  is  never  betrayed  into  any  curiosity  or 
unbecoming  emotion.  They  have  all  been  trained 
in  one  severe  school  of  manners,  and  never  put 
off -the  harness.  He  does  not  give  his  hand.  He 
does  not  let  you  meet  his  eye.  It  is  almost  an 
affront  to  look  .  a  man  in  the  face,  without  being 
introduced.  In  mixed  or  in  select  companies  they 
do  not  introduce  persons  ;  so  that  a  presentation  is 
a  circumstance  as  valid  as  a  contract.  Introduc 
tions  are  sacraments.  He  withholds  his  name.  At 
10 


110  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

the  hotel,  he  is  hardly  willing  to  whisper  it  to  the 
clerk  at  the  book-office.  If  he  give  you  his  private 
address  on  a  card,  it  is  like  an  avowal  of  friend 
ship  ;  and  his  bearing,  on  being  introduced,  is  cold, 
even  though  he  is  seeking  your  acquaintance,  and 
is  studying  how  he  shall  serve  you. 

It  was  an  odd  proof  of  this  impressive  energy, 
that,  in  my  lectures,  I  hesitated  to  read  and  threw 
out  for  its  impertinence  many  a  disparaging  phrase, 
which  I  had  been  accustomed  to  spin,  about  poor, 
thin,  unable  mortals ;  —  so  much  had  the  fine 
physique  and  the  personal  vigor  of  this  robust  race 
"worked  on  my  imagination. 

I  happened  to  arrive  in  England,  at  the  moment 
of  a  commercial  crisis.  But  it  was  evident,  that, 
let  who  will  fail,  England  will  not.  These  people 
have  sat  here  a  thousand  years,  and  here  will  con 
tinue  to  sit.  They  will  not  break  up,  or  arrive  at 
any  desperate  revolution,  like  their  neighbors  ;  for 
they  have  as  much  energy,  as  much  continence  of 
character  as  they  ever  had.  The  power  and  pos 
session  which  surround  them  are  their  own  crea 
tion,  and  they  exert  the  same  commanding  industry 
at  this  moment. 

They  are  positive,  methodical,  cleanly,  and  for 
mal,  loving  routine,  and  conventional  ways  ;  loving 
truth  and  religion,  to  be  sure,  but  inexorable  on 


MANNERS.  Ill 

points  of  form.^  Al]  the  world  praises  the  comfort 
and  private  appointments  of  an  English  inn,  and 
of  English  households.  You  are  sure  of  neatness 
and  of  personal  decorum.  A  Frenchman  may 
possibly  be  clean  ;  an  Englishman  is  conscientious 
ly  clean.  A  certain  order  and  complete  propriety 
is  found  in  his  dress  and  in  his  belongings. 

Born  in  a  harsh  and  wet  climate,  which  keeps 
him  in  doors  whenever  he  is  at  rest,  and  being  of 
an  affectionate  and  loyal  temper,  he  dearly  loves 
his  house.  If  he  is  rich,  he  buys  a  demesne,  and 
builds  a  hall;  if  he  is  in  middle  condition,  he 
spares  no  expense  on  his  house.  Without,  it  is  all 
planted  :  within,  it  is  wainscoted,  carved,  curtained, 
hung  with  pictures,  and  filled  with  good  furniture. 
'Tis  a  passion  which  survives  all  others,  to  deck 
and  improve  it.  Hither  he  brings  all  that  is  rare 
and  costly,  and  with  the  national  tendency  to  sit 
fast  in  the  same  spot  for  many  generations,  it  comes 
to  be,  in  the  course  of  time,  a  museum  of  heirlooms, 
gifts,  and  trophies  of  the  adventures  and  exploits 
of  the  family.  He  is  very  fond  of  silver  plate, 
and,  though  he  have  no  gallery  of  portraits  of  his 
ancestors,  he  has  of  their  punch-bowls  and  porrin 
gers.  Incredible  amounts  of  plate  are  found  in 
good  houses,  and  the  poorest  have  some  spoon  or 
saucepan,  gift  of  a  godmother,  saved  out  of  better 
times. 


112  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

An  English  family  consists  of  a  few  persons, 
who,  from  youth  to  age,  are  found  revolving  with 
in  a  few  feet  of  each  other,  as  if  tied  by  some  in 
visible  ligature,  tense  as  that  cartilage  which  we 
have  seen  attaching  the  two  Siamese.  England 
produces  under  favorable  conditions  of  ease  and 
culture  the  finest  women  in  the  world.  And, 
as  the  men  are  affectionate  and  true-hearted,  the 
women  inspire  and  refine  them.  Nothing  can 
be  more  delicate  without  being  fantastical,  nothing 
more  firm  and  based  in  nature  and  sentiment,  than 
the  courtship  and  mutual  carriage  of  the  sexes. 
The  song  of  1596  says,  "The  wife  of  every  Eng 
lishman  is  counted  blest."  The  sentiment  of  Im 
ogen  in  Cymbeline  is  copied  from  English  nature ; 
and  not  less  the  Portia  of  Brutus,  the  Kate  Percy, 
and  the  Desdemona.  The  romance  does  not  exceed 
the  height  of  noble  passion  in  Mrs.  Lucy  Hutch- 
inson,  or  in  Lady  Russell,  or  even  as  one  discerns 
through  the  plain  prose  of  Pepys's  Diary,  the  sa 
cred  habit  of  an  English  wife.  Sir  Samuel  Romilly 
could  not  bear  the  death  of  his  wife.  Every  class 
has  its  noble  and  tender  examples. 

Domesticity  is   the   taproot  which   enables   the 

nation  to  branch  wide  and  high.     The  motive  and 

end  of  their  trade  and  empire  is  to  guard  the  iii- 

\  dependence  and  privacy  of  their  homes.     Nothing 


MANNERS.  113 

so  much  marks  their  manners  as  the  concentra 
tion  on  their  household  ties.  This  domesticity 
is  carried  into  court  and  camp.  Wellington 
governed  India  and  Spain  and  his  own  troops, 
and  fought  battles  like  a  good  family-man,  paid 
his  debts,  and,  though  general  of  an  army  in 
Spain,  could  not  stir  abroad  for  fear  of  public 
creditors.  This  taste  for  house  and  parish  merits 
has  of  course  its  doting  and  foolish  side.  Mr. 
Cobbett  attributes  the  huge  popularity  of  Perce 
val,  prime  'minister  in  1810,  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  wont  to  go  to  church,  every  Sunday,  with  a 
large  quarto  gilt  prayer-book  under  one  arm,  his 
wife  hanging  on  the  other,  and  followed  by  a  long 
brood  of  children. 

They  keep  their  old  customs,  costumes,  and 
pomps,  their  wig  and  mace,  sceptre  and  crown. 
The  middle  ages  still  lurk  in  the  streets  of  Lon 
don.  The  Knights  of  the  Bath  take  oath  to 
defend  injured  ladies ;  the  gold-stick-in-waiting 
survives.  They  repeated  the  ceremonies  of  the 
eleventh  century  in  the  coronation  of  the  present 
Queen.  A  hereditary  tenure  is  natural  to  them. 
Offices,  farms,  trades,  and  traditions  descend  so. 
Their  leases  run  for  a  hundred  and  a  thousand 
years.  Terms  of  service  and  partnership  are  life- 
!ong,  or  are  inherited.  "  Holdship  has  been  with 
10* 


114  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

me,"  said  Lord  Eldon,  "  eight-and-twenty  years, 
knows  all  my  business  and  books."  Antiquity 
of  usage  is  sanction  enough.  Wordsworth  says 
of  the  small  freeholders  of  Westmoreland,  "  Many 
of  these  humble  sons  of  the  hills  had  a  conscious 
ness  that  the  land  which  they  tilled  had  for  more 
than  five  hundred  years  been  possessed  by  men  of 
the  same  name  and  blood."  The  ship-carpenter 
in  the  public  yards,  my  lord's  gardener  and  porter, 
have  been  there  for  more  than  a  hundred  years, 
grandfather,  father,  and  son. 

The  English  power  resides  also  in  their  dislike 
of  change.  They  have  difficulty  in  bringing  their 
reason  to  act,  and  on  all  occasions  use  their  mem 
ory  first.  As  soon  as  they  have  rid  themselves  of 
some  grievance,  and  settled  the  better  practice, 
they  make  haste  to  fix  it  as  a  finality,  and  never 
wish  to  hear  of  alteration  more. 

Every  Englishman  is  an  embryonic  chancellor  : 
His  instinct  is  to  search  for  a  ^precedent.  The  fa 
vorite  phrase  of  their  law,  is,  "  a  custom  whereof 
the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  back  to  the  con 
trary."  The  barons  say,  "  Nolumus  mutari ;  "  and 
the  cockneys  stifle  the  curiosity  of  the  foreigner  on 
the  reason  of  any  practice,  with  "  Lord,  sir,  it  was 
always  so."  They  hate  innovation.  Bacon  told 
them,  Time  was  the  right  reformer;  Chatham, 


MANNERS.  115 

that  "  confidence  was  a  plant  of  slow  growth  ;  " 
Canning,  to  "  advance  with  the  times  ;  "  and  Wel 
lington,  that  "  habit  was  ten  times  nature."  All 
their  statesmen  learn  the  irresistibility  of  the  tide 
of  custom,  and  have  invented  many  fine  phrases  to 
cover  this  slowness  of  perception,  and  prehensility 
of  tail. 

A  seashell   should  be  the  crest  of  England,  not 
only  because   it   represents  a  power  built  on  the 
waves,  but  also  the   hard  finish  of  the  men..     The 
Englishrnan  is  finished  like  a  cowry  or  a  murex. 
After  the  spire  and  the  spines  are  formed,  or,  with 
the  formation,  a  juice   exudes,  and   a  hard  enamel 
varnishes  every  part.     The  keeping  of  the  propriety* 
ties  is  as  indispensable  as   clean  linen.     No  merit  ? 
quite   countervails   the   want   of   this,  whilst   this  I 
sometimes    stands   in   lieu   of   all.      "  'Tis   in   bad 
taste,"  is  the  most  formidable  word  an  Englishman 
can  pronounce.     But  this  japan   costs  them   dear.  \ 
There  is  a  prose  in  certain  Englishmen,  which  ex-* 
ceeds   in  wooden   deadness   all  rivalry  with   other 
countrymen.      There  is  a  knell  in  the  conceit  and 
externality   of    their   voice,    which   seems   to   say, 
Leave  all  hope  behind.     In  this  Gibraltar  of  pro 
priety,  mediocrity  gets  intrenched,  and  consolidat 
ed,  arid  founded  in  adamant.     An  Englishman  of 
fashion  is  like  one  of  those  souvenirs,  bound  in 


116  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

gold  vellum,  enriched  with  delicate  engravings,, 
on  thick  hot-pressed  paper,  fit  for  the  hands  of 
ladies  and  princes,  but  with  nothing  in  it  worth 
reading  or  remembering. 

A  severe  decorum  rules  the  court  and  the  cot 
tage.  "When  Thalberg,  the  pianist,  was  one  even 
ing  performing  before  the  Queen,  at  Windsor,  in 
a  private  party,  the  Queen  accompanied  him  with 
her  voice.  The  circumstance  took  air,  and  all 
England  shuddered  from  sea  to  sea.  The  indeco 
rum  was  never  repeated.  Cold,  repressive  man 
ners  prevail.  No  enthusiasm  is  permitted  except 
at  the  opera.  They  avoid  every  thing  marked. 
They  require  a  tone  of  voice  that  excites  no  atten 
tion  in  the  room.  Sir  Philip  Sydney  is  one  of  the 
patron  saints  of  England,  of  whom  Wottoii  said, 
"  His  wit  was  the  measure  of  congruity." 

Pretension  and  vaporing  are  once  for  all  distaste 
ful.  They  keep  to  the  other  extreme  of  low  tone 
in  dress  and  manners.  They  avoid  pretension  and 
go  right  to  the  heart  of  the  thing.  They  hate 
nonsense,  sentimentalism,  and  highflown  expres 
sion  ;  they  use  a  studied  plainness.  Even  Brum- 
mel  their  fop  was  marked  by  the  severest  simplicity 
in  dress.  They  value  themselves  on  the  absence  of 
every  thing  theatrical  in  the  public  business,  and  on 
conciseness  and  going  to  the  point,  in  private  affairs. 


MANNERS.  117 

In  an  aristocratical  country,  like  England,  not 
the  Trial  by  Jury,  but  the  dinner  is  the  capital 
institution.  It  is  the  mode  of  doing  honor  to  a 
stranger,  to  invite  him  to  eat,  —  and  has  been  for 
many  hundred  years.  "And, they  think,"  says 
the  Venetian  traveller  of  1500,  "  no  greater  honor 
can  be  conferred  or  received,  than  to  invite  others 
to  eat  with  them,  or  to  be  invited  themselves,  and 
they  would  sooner  give  five  or  six  ducats  to  pro 
vide  an  entertainment  for  a  person,  than  a  groat 
to  assist  him  in  any  distress."*  It  is  reserved  to 
the  end  of  the  day,  the  family-hour  being  generally 
six,  in  London,  and,  if  any  company  is  expected,  one 
or  two  hours  later.  Every  one  dresses  for  dinner, 
in  his  own  house,  or  in  anojther  man's.  The  guests 
are -jexpected  to  arrive  within  half  an  hour  of  the 
time  fixed  by  card  of  invitation,  and  nothing  but 
death  or  mutilation  is  permitted  to  detain  them. 
The  English  dinner  is  precisely  the  model  on 
which  our  own  are  constructed  in  the  Atlantic 
cities.  The  company  sit  one  or  two  hours,  before 
the  ladies  leave  the  table.  The  gentlemen  re 
main  over  their  wine  an  hour  longer,  and  rejoin 
the  ladies  in  the  drawing-room,  and  take  coffee. 
The  dress-dinner  generates  a  talent  of  table-talk, 

*  "  Relation  of  England."    Printed  by  the  Camden  Society. 


118  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

which  reaches  great  perfection :  the  stories  are 
so  good,  that  one  is  sure  they  must  have  been 
often  told  before,  to  have  got  such  happy  turns. 
Hither  come  all  manner  of  clever  projects,  bits  of 
popular  science,  of  practical  invention,  of  miscel 
laneous  humor  ;  political,  literary,  and  personal 
news  ;  railroads,  horses,  diamonds,  agriculture, 
horticulture,  pisciculture,  and  wine. 

English  stories,  bori-mots,  and  the  recorded 
table-talk  of  their  wits,  are  as  good  as  the  best  of 
the  French.  In  America,  we  are  apt  scholars, 
but  have  not  yet  attained  the  same  perfection  : 
for  the  range  of  nations  from  which  London 
draws,  and  the  steep  contrasts  of  condition  create 
the  picturesque  in  society,  as  broken  country  makes 
picturesque  landscape,  whilst  our  prevailing  equal 
ity  makes  a  prairie  tameness  :  and  secondly,  be 
cause  the  usage  of  a  dress-dinner  every  day  at 
dark,  has  a  tendency  to  hive  and  produce  to  ad 
vantage  every  thing  good.  Much  attrition  has 
worn  every  sentence  into  a  bullet.  Also  one  meets 
now  and  then  with  polished  men,  who  know  every 
thing,  have  tried  every  thing,,  can  do  every  thing, 
and  are  quite  superior  to  letters  and  science.  What 
could  they  not,  if  only  they  would  ? 


CHAPTER    VII. 

TRUTH. 

THE  Teutonic  tribes  have  a  national  singleness  of 
heart,  which  contrasts  with  the  Latin  races.  The 
German  name  has  a  proverbial  significance  of  sin 
cerity  and  honest  meaning.  The  arts  bear  testi 
mony  to  it.  The  faces  of  clergy  and  laity  in  old 
sculptures  and  illuminated  missals  are  charged  with 
earnest  belief.  Add  to  this  hereditary  rectitude, 
the  punctuality  and  precise  dealing  which  com 
merce  creates,  and  you  have  the  English  truth  and 
credit.  The  government  strictly  performs  its  en 
gagements.  The  subjects  do  not  understand  tri 
fling  on  its  part.  When  any  breach  of  promise 
occurred,  in  the  old  days  of  prerogative,  it  was 
resented  by  the  people  as  an  intolerable  grievance. 
And,  in  modern  times,  any  slipperiness  in  the  gov 
ernment  in  political  faith,  or  any  repudiation  or 
Crookedness  in  matters  of  finance,  would  bring  the 
whole  nation  to  a  committee  of  inquiry  and  reform. 
Private  men  keep  their  promises,  never  so  trivial. 

(119) 


120  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

Down  goes  the  flying  word  on  the  tablets,  and  is 
indelible  as  Domesday  Book. 

Their  practical  power  rests  on  their  national  sin 
cerity.  Veracity  derives  from  instinct,  and  marks 
superiority  in  organization.  Nature  has  endowed 
some  animals  with  cunning,  as  a  compensation  for 
Strength  withheld ;  but  it  has  provoked  the  malice 
of  all  others,  as  if  avengers  of  public  wrong.  In 
the  nobler  kinds,  where  strength  could  be  afforded, 
her  races  are  loyal  to  truth,  as  truth  is  the  founda 
tion  of  the  social  state.  Beasts  that  make  no  truce 
with  man,  do  not  break  faith  with  each  other.  'Tis 
said,  that  the  wolf,  who  makes  a  cache  of  his  pi;ey, 
and  brings  his  fellows  with  him  to  the  spot,  if,  \>n 
digging,  it  is  not  found,  is  instantly  and  unresist 
ingly  torn  in  pieces.  English  veracity  seems  to 
result  on  a  sounder  animal  structure,  as  if  they 
could  afford  it.  They  are  blunt  in  saying  what 
they  think,  sparing  of  promises,  and  they  require 
plaindealing  of  others.  "We  will  not  have  to  do  with 
a  man  in  a  mask.  Let  us  know  the  truth.  Draw  a. 
straight  line,  hit  whom  and  where  it  will.  Alfred, 
whom  the  affection  of  the  nation  makes  the  type 
of  their  race,  is  called  by  a  writer  at  the  Norman 
Conquest,  the  truth- speaker ;  Alueredus  veridicus. 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  says  of  King  Aurelius,  uncle 
of  Arthur,  that  "above  all  things  he  hated  a  lio," 


TRUTH.  121 

The  Northman  Guttorm  said  to  King  Olaf,  "  it  is 
royal  work  to  fulfil  royal  words."  The  mottoes 
of  their  families  are  monitory  proverbs,  as,  Fare 
fac,  —  Say,  do,  —  of  the  Fairfaxes  ;  Say  and  seal, 
of  the  house  of  Fiennes ;  Vero  nil  verius,  of  the 
De Veres.  To  be  king  of  their  word,  is  their  pride. 
When  they  unmask  cant,  they  say,  "  the  English 
of  this  is,"  &c. ;  and  to  give  the  lie  is  the  extreme 
insult.  The  phrase  of  the  lowest  of  the  people  is 
"honor-bright,"  and  their  vulgar  praise,  "his 
word  is  as  good  as  his  bond."  They  hate  shuffling 
and  equivocation,  and  the  cause  is  damaged  in  the 
public  opinion,  011  which  any  paltering  can  be  fixed. 
Even  Lord  Chesterfield,  with  his  French  breeding, 
when  he  came  to  define  a  gentleman,  declared  that 
truth  made  his  distinction:  and  nothing  ever 
spoken  by  him  would  find  so  hearty  a  suffrage 
from  his  nation.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  who 
had  the  best  right  to  say  so,  advises  the  French 
General  Kellermann,  that  he  may  rely  on  the  parole 
of  an  English  officer.  The  English,  of  all  classes, 
value  themselves  on  this  trait,  as  distinguishing 
them  from  the  French,  who,  in  the  popular  belief, 
are  more  polite  than  true.  An  Englishman  under 
states,  avoids  the  superlative,  checks  himself  in 
compliments,  alleging,  that  in  the  French  language, 
one  cannot  speak  without  lying. 

u 


122  ENGLISH 


They  love  reality  in  wealth,  power,  hospitality,, 
and  do  not  easily  learn  to  make  a  show,  and  take 
the  world  as  it  goes.  They  are  not  fond  of  orna 
ments,  and  if  they  wear  them,  they  must  be  gems. 
They  read  gladly  in  old  Fuller,  that  a  lady,  in  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  "  would  have  as  patiently  digest 
ed  a  lie,  as  the  wearing  of  false  stones  or  pendants 
of  counterfeit  pearl."  They  have  the  earth-hunger^ 
or  preference  for  property  in  land,  which  is  said  to 
mark  the  Teutonic  nations.  They  build  of  stone  : 
public  and  private  buildings  are  massive  and  dura 
ble  :  In  comparing  their  ships'  houses,  and  public 
offices  with  the  American,  it  is  commonly  said, 
that  they  spend  a  pound,  where  wre  spend  a  dollar. 
Plain  rich  clothes,  plain  rich  equipage,  plain  rich 
finish  throughout  their  house  and  belongings,  mark 
the  English  truth. 

They  confide  in  each  other,  —  English  believes 
in  English.  The  French  feel  the  superiority  of 
this  probity.  The  Englishman  is  not  springing  a 
trap  for  his  admiration,  but  is  honestly  minding  his 
business.  The  Frenchman  is  vain.  Madame  de 
Stael  says,  that  the  English  irritated  Napoleon, 
mainly,  because  they  have  found  out  how  to  unite 
success  with  honesty.  She  was  not  aware  how 
wide  an  application  her  foreign  readers  would  give 
to  the  remark.  Wellington  discovered  the  ruin 


TRUTH.  123 

of  Bonaparte's  affairs,  by  his  own  probity.  He 
augured  ill  of  the  empire,  as  soon  as  he  saw  that 
it  was  mendacious,  and  lived  by  war.  If  war  do 
not  bring  in  its  sequel  new  trade,  better  agricul 
ture  and  manufactures,  but  only  games,  fireworks, 
and  spectacles,  —  no  prosperity  could  support  it ; 
much  less,  a  nation  decimated  for  conscripts,  and 
out  of  pocket,  like  France.  So  he  drudged  for  years 
on  his  military  works  at  Lisbon,  and  from  this  base 
at  last  extended  his  gigantic  lines  to  Waterloo, 
believing  in  his  countrymen  and  their  syllogisms 
above  all  the  rhodomontade  of  Europe. 

At  a  St.  George's  festival,  in  Montreal,  where  I 
happened  to  be  a  guest,  since  my  return  home,  I 
observed  that  the  chairman  complimented  his  com 
patriots,  by  saying,  "  they  confided  that  wherever 
they  met  an  Englishman,  they  found  a  man  who 
<vould  speak  the  truth."  And  one  cannot  think  this 
festival  fruitless,  if,  all  over  the  world,  on  the  23d 
of  April,  wherever  two  or  three  English  are  found, 
they  meet  to  encourage  each  other  in  the  nation 
ality  of  veracity. 

In  the  power  of  saying  rude  truth,  sometimes  in 
the  lion's  mouth,  no  men  surpass  them.  On  the 
king's  birthday,  when  each  bishop  was  expected 
to  offer  the  king  a  purse  of  gold,  Latimer  gave 
Henry  VIII.  a  copy  of  the  Vulgate,  with  a  mark 


124  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

at  the  passage,  "  Whoremongers  and  adulterers 
God  will  judge ;  "  and  they  so  honor  stoutness  in 
each  other,  that  the  king  passed  it  over.  Theyj 
are  tenacious  of  their  belief,  and  cannot  easily 
change  their  opinions  to  suit  the  hour.  They  are 
like  ships  with  too  mucn  head  on  to  come  quickly 
about,  nor  will  prosperity  or  even  adversity  be 
allowed  to  shake  their  habitual  view  of  conduct. 
Whilst  I  was  in  London,  M.  Guizot  arrived  there 
on  his  escape  from  Paris,  in  February,  1848. 
Many  private  friends  called  on  him.  His  name 
was  immediately  proposed  as  an  honorary  member 
of  the  Athenaeum.  M.  Guizot  was  blackballed. 
Certainly,  they  knew  the  distinction  of  his  name. 
Bat  the  Englishman  is  not  fickle.  He  had  really 
made  up  his  mind,  now  for  years  as  he  read  his 
newspaper,  to  hate  and  despise  M.  Guizot ;  and  the 
altered  position  of  the  man  as  an  illustrious  exile,  and 
a  guest  in  the  country,  makes  no  difference  to  him, 
as  it  would  instantly  to  an  American. 

They  require  the  same  adherence,  thorough  con 
viction  and  reality  in  public  men.  It  is  the  want 
of  character  which  makes  the  low  reputation  of  the 
Irish  members.  "  $ee  them,"  they  said,  "  one 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  all  voting  like  sheep, 
never  proposing  any  thing,  and  all  but  four  voting 
the  income  tax,"  —  which  was  an  ill-judged  conces- 


TRUTH.  125 

sion  of  the  Government,  relieving  Irish  property 
from  the  burdens  charged  on  English. 

They  have  a  horror  of  adventurers  in  or  out  of 
Parliament.  The  ruling  passion  of  Englishmen,  in 
these  days,  is,  a  terror  of  humbug.  In  the  same 
proportion,  they  value  honesty,  stoutness,  and  ad 
herence  to  your  own.  They  like  a  man  committed 
to  his  objects.  They  hate  the  French,  as  frivolous  ; 
they  hate  the  Irish,  as  aimless ;  they  hate  the  Ger 
mans,  as  professors.  In  February,  1848,  they 
said,  Look,  the  French  king  and  his  party  fell  for 
want  of  a  shot ;  they  had  not  conscience  to  shoot, 
so  entirely  was  the  pith  and  heart  of  monarchy 
eaten  out. 

They  attack  their  own  politicians  every  day,  on 
the  same  grounds,  as  adventurers.  They  love 
stoutness  in  standing  for  your  right,  in  declining 
money  or  promotion  that  costs  any  concession. 
The  barrister  refuses  the  silk  gown  of  Queen's 
Counsel,  if  his  junior  have  it  one  day  earlier. 
Lord  Collingwood  would  not  accept  his  medal  for 
victory  on  14th  February,  1797,  if  he  did  not 
receive  one  for  victory  on  1st  June,  1794 ;  and  the 
long  withholden  medal  was  accorded.  When  Cas- 
tlereagh  dissuaded  Lord  Wellington  from  going  to 
the  king's  levee,  until  the  unpopular  Cintra  busi 
ness  had  been  explained,  he  replied,  "  You  furnish 
11* 


126  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

me  a  reason  for  going.  I  will  go  to  this,  or  I  will 
never  go  to  a  king's  levee."  The  radical  mob  at 
Oxford  cried  after  the  tory  lord  Eldon,  "  There's  old 
Eldon;  cheer  him;  he  never  ratted."  They  have 
given  the  parliamentary  nickname  of  Trimmers  to 
the  timeservers,  whom  English  character  does  not 
love.* 

They  are  very  liable  in  their  politics  to  extra 
ordinary  delusions.,  thus,  to  believe  what  stands 
recorded  in  the  gravest  books,  that  the  movement 
of  10  April,  1848,  was  nrged  or  assisted  by  for 
eigners  :  which,  to  be  sure,  is  paralleled  by  the 
democratic  whimsy  in  this  country,  which  I  have 
noticed  to  be  shared  by  men  sane  on  other  points, 
that  the  English  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  agitation 
of  slavery,  in  American  politics  :  and  then  again 
to  the  French  popular  legends  on  the  subject  of 
perfidious  Albion.  But  suspicion  will  make  fools 
of  nations  as  of  citizens. 


*  It  is  an  unlucky  moment  to  remember  these  sparkles  of  solitary 
virtue  in  the  face  of  the  honors  lately  paid  in  England  to  the  Em 
peror  Louis  Napoleon.  I  am  sure  that  no  Englishman  whom  I  had 
the  happiness  to  know,  consented,  when  the  aristocracy  and  the 
commons  of  London  cringed  like  a  Neapolitan  rabble,  before  a  suc 
cessful  thief.  But  —  how  to  resist  one  step,  though  odious,  in  a 
linked  series  of  state  necessities  ?  —  Governments  must  always  learn 
too  late,  that  the  use  of  dishonest  agents  is  as  ruinous  for  nations 
as  for  single  men. 


TRUTH.  127 

A  slow  temperament  makes  them  less  rapid  and  • 
ready  than  other  countrymen,  and  has  given  occa 
sion  to  the  observation,  that  English  wit  comes 
afterwards,  —  which  the  French  denote  as  esprit  I 
d'escalier.  This  dulness  makes  their  attachmenf- 
to  home,  and  their  adherence  in  all  foreign  coun 
tries  to  home  habits.  The  Englishman  who  visits 
Mount  Etna,  will  carry  his  teakettle  to  the  top. 
The  old  Italian  author  of  the  ft  Eelation  of  Eng 
land  "  (in  1500),  says,  "  I  have  it  on  the  best 
information,  that,  when  the  war  is  actually  raging 
most  furiously,  they  will  seek  for  good  eating,  and 
all  their  other  comforts,  without  thinking  what 
harm  might  befall  them."  Then  their  eyes  seem 
to  be  set  at  the  bottom  of  a  tunnel,  and  they  affirm 
the  one  small  fact  they  know,  with  the  best  faith 
in  the  world  that  nothing  else  exists.  And,  as 
their  own  belief  in  guineas  is  perfect,  they  readily, 
on  all  occasions,  apply  the  pecuniary  argument  as 
final.  Thus  when  the  Rochester  rappings  began  to 
be  heard  of  in  England,  a  man  deposited  £100  in  a 
sealed  box  in  the  Dublin  Bank,  and  then  advertised 
in  the  newspapers  to  all  somnambulists,  mesmer- 
izers,  and  others,  that  whoever  could  tell  him  the 
number  of  his  note,  should  have  the  money.  He 
let  it  lie  there  six  months,  the  newspapers  now 
and  then,  at  his  instance,  stimulating  the  attention 


128  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

of  the  adepts  ;  but  none  could  ever  tell  him  ;  and 
he  said,  "  now  let  me  never  be  bothered  more 
with  this  proven  lie."  It  is  told  of  a  good  Sir 
John,  that  he  heard  a.  case  stated  by  counsel,  and 
made  up  his  mind  ;  then  the  counsel  for  the  other 
side  taking  their  turn  to  speak,  he  found  himself 
so  unsettled  and  perplexed,  that  he  exclaimed,  "  So 
help  me  God  !  I  will  never  listen  to  evidence 
again."  Any  number  of  delightful  examples  of 
this  English  stolidity  are  the  anecdotes  of  Europe. 
I  knew  a  very  worthy  man,  —  a  magistrate,  I  be 
lieve  he  was,  in  the  town  of  Derby,  —  who  went 
to  the  opera,  to  see  Malibran.  In  one  scene,  the 
heroine  was  to  rush  across  a  ruined  bridge.  Mr. 
B.  arose,  and  mildly  yet  firmly  called  the  attention 
of  the  audience  and  the  performers  to  the  fact, 
that,  in  his  judgment,  the  bridge  was  unsafe ! 
This  English  stolidity  contrasts  with  French  wit 
and  tact.  The  French,  it  is  commonly  said,  have 
greatly  more  influence  in  Europe  than  the  English. 
What  influence  the  English  have  is  by  brute  force 
of  wealth  and  power  ;  that  of  the  French  by  affin 
ity  and  talent.  The  Italian  is  subtle,  the  Spaniard 
treacherous  :  tortures,  it  was  said,  could  never 
.wrest  from  an  Egyptian  the  confession  of  a  se 
cret.  None  of  these  traits  belong  to  the  Eng 
lishman.  His  choler  and  conceit  force  every  thing 


TRUTH.  129 

out.      Defoe,  who  knew  his  countrymen  well,  says 
of  them, 

"  In  close  intrigue,  their  faculty's  but  weak, 
For  generally  whate'er  they  know,  they  speak, 
And  often  their  own  counsels  undermine 
By  mere  infirmity  without  design  ; 
From  whence,  the  learned  say,  it  doth  proceed, 
That  English  treasons  never  can  succeed  ; 
For  they're  so  open-hearted,  you  may  know 
Their  own  most  secret  thoughts,  and  others'  too. " 


CHAPTEK    VIII. 

CHARACTER. 

THE  English  race  are  reputed  morose.  I  do 
not  know  that  they  have  sadder  brows  than  their 
neighbors  of  northern  climates.  They  are  sad  by 
comparison  with  the  singing  and  dancing  nations  : 
not  sadder,  but  slow  and  staid,  as  finding  their 
joys  at  home.  They,  too,  believe  that  where  there 
is  no  enjoyment  of  life,  there  can  be  no  vigor  and 
art  in  speech  or  thought :  that  your  merry  heart 
goes  all  the  way,  your  sad  one  tires  in  a  mile. 
This  trait  of  gloom  has  been  fixed  on  them  by 
French  travellers,  who,  from  Froissart,  Voltaire, 
Le  Sage,  Mirabeau,  down  to  the  lively  journalists 
of  the  feuilletons,  have  spent  their  wit  on  the  so 
lemnity  of  their  neighbors.  The  French  say,  gay 
conversation  is  unknown  in  their  island.  The 
Englishman  finds  no  relief  from  reflection,  except 
in  reflection.  When  he  wishes  for  amusement,  he 
goes  to  work.  His  hilarity  is  like  an  attack  of 
fever.  Religion,  the  theatre,  and  the  reading  the 

(130) 


CHARACTER.  131 

books  of  his  country,  all  feed  and  increase  his  nat 
ural  melancholy.  The  police  does  not  interfere  with 
public  diversions.  It  thinks  itself  bound  in  duty 
to  respect  the  pleasures  and  rare  gayety  of  this  in 
consolable  nation  ;  and  their  well-known  courage 
is  entirely  attributable  to  their  disgust  of  life. 

I  suppose,  their  gravity  of  demeanor  and  their 
few  words  have  obtained  this  reputation.  As  com-  v 
pared  with  the  Americans,  I  think  them  cheerful  } 
and  contented.  Young  people,  in  this  country, 
are  much  more  prone  to  melancholy.  The  English 
have  a  mild  aspect,  and  a  ringing  cheerful  voice. 
They  are  large-natured,  and  not  so  easily  amused 
as  the  southerners,  and  are  among  them  as  grown 
people  among  children,  requiring  war,  or  trade,  or 
engineering,  or  science,  instead  of  frivolous  games. 
They  are  proud  and  private,  and,  even  if  disposed  \ 
to  recreation,  will  avoid  an  open  garden.  They 
sported  sadly  ;  Us  s'amusaient  tristement,  selon  la 
coutume  de  leur  pays,  said  Froissart ;  and,  I  suppose, 
never  nation  built  their  party-walls  so  thick,  or 
their  garden-fences  so  high.  Meat  and  wine  pro 
duce  no  effect  on  them  :  they  are  just  as  cold, 
quiet,  and  composed,  at  the  end,  as  at  the  begin 
ning  of  dinner. 

The  reputation  of  taciturnity  they  have  enjoyed 
tor  six  or  seven  hundred  years  ;  and  a  kind  of 


132  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

pride  in  bad  public  speaking  is  noted  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  as  if  they  were  willing  to  show  that 
they  did  not  live  by  their  tongues,  or  thought  they 
spoke  well  enough  if  they  had  the  tone  of  gentle 
men.  In  mixed  company,  they  shut  their  mouths. 
A  Yorkshire  mill-owner  told  me,  he  had  ridden 
more  than  once  all  the  way  from  London  to  Leeds, 
in  the  first-class  carriage,  with  the  same  persons, 
and  no  word  exchanged.  The  club-houses  were 
established  to  cultivate  social  habits,  and  it  is  rare 
that  more  than  two  eat  together,  and  oftenest  one 
eats  alone.  Was  it  then  a  stroke  of  humor  in  the 
serious  Swedenborg,  or  was  it  only  his  pitiless 
logic,  that  made  him  shut  up  the  English  souls  in 
a  heaven  by  themselves  ? 

They  are  contradictorily  described  as  sour,  splen 
etic,  and  stubborn,  —  and  as  mild,  sweet,  and 
sensible.  The  truth  is,  they  have  great  range  and 
variety  of  character.  Commerce  sends  abroad 
multitudes  of  different  classes.  The  choleric 
Welshman,  the  fervid  Scot,  the  bilious  resident  in 
the  East  or  West  Indies,  are  wide  of  the  perfect; 
behavior  of  the  educated  and  dignified  man  01 
family.  So  is  the  burly  farmer  ;  so  is  the  country 
'squire,  with  his  narrow  and  violent  life.  In  every 
inn,  is  the  Commercial-Room,  in  which  '  trav 
ellers,'  or  bagmen  who  carry  patterns,  and  solicit 


CHARACTER.  133 

orders,  for  the  manufacturers,  are  wont  to  be  en 
tertained.  It  easily  happens  that  this  class  should 
characterize  England  to  the  foreigner,,  who  meets 
them  on  the  road,  and  at  every  public  house,  whilst 
the  gentry  avoid  the  taverns,  or  seclude  themselves 
whilst  in  them. 

But  these  classes  are  the  right  English  stock, 
and  may  fairly  show  the  national  qualities,  before 
yet  art  and  education  have  dealt  with  them.  They 
are  good  lovers,  good  haters,  slow  but  obstinate 
admirers,  and,  in  all  things,  very  much  steeped  in 
their  temperament,  like  men  hardly  awaked  from 
deep  sleep,  which  they  enjoy.  Their  habits  and 
instincts  cleave  to  nature.  They  are  of  the  earth, 
earthy  ;  and  of  the  sea,  as  the  sea-kinds,  attached 
to  it  for  what  it  yields  them,  and  not  from  any  senti 
ment.  They  are  full  of  coarse  strength,  rude  exer 
cise,  butcher's  meat,  and  sound  sleep  ;  and  suspect 
any  poetic  insinuation  or  any  liint  for  the  conduct 
of  life  which  reflects  on  this  animal  existence,  as  if 
«omebody  were  fumbling  at  the  umbilical  cord  and 
might  stop  their  supplies.  They  doubt  a  man's 
sound  judgment,  if  he  does  not  eat  with  appetite, 
and  shake  their  heads  if  he  is  particularly  chaste. 
Take  them  as  they  come,  you  shall  find  in  the 
common  people  a  surly  indifference,  sometimes 
gruffness  and  ill  temper  ;  and,  in  minds  of  more 


134  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

power,  magazines  of  inexhaustible  war,  chal 
lenging 

"  The  ruggedest  hour  that  time  and  spite  dare  bring 
To  frown  upon  the  enraged  Northumberland." 

They  are  headstrong  believers  and  defenders  of 
their  opinion,  and  not  less  resolute  in  maintaining 
their  whim  and  perversity.  Hezekiah  Woodward 
wrote  a  book  against  the  Lord's  Prayer.  And 
one  can  believe  that  Burton  the  Anatomist  of  Mel 
ancholy,  having  predicted  from  the  stars  the  hour 
of  his  death,  slipped  the  knot  himself  round  his 
own  neck,  not  to  falsify  his  horoscope. 

Their  looks  bespeak  an  invincible  stoutness  : 
they  have  extreme  difficulty  to  run  away,  and  will 
die  game.  Wellington  said  of  the  young  coxcombs 
of  the  Life-Guards  delicately  brought  up,  t(  but 
the  puppies  fight  well ;  "  and  Nelson  said  of  his 
sailors,  "  they  really  mind  shot  no  more  than 
peas."  Of  absolute  stoutness  no  nation  has  more 
or  better  examples.  They  are  good  at  storming 
redoubts,  at  boarding  frigates,  at  dying  in  the  last 
ditch,  or  any  desperate  service  which  has  daylight 
and  honor  in  it  ;  but  not,  I  think,  at  enduring  the 
rack,  or  any  passive  obedience,  like  jumping  off  a 
castle-roof  at  the  word  of  a  czar.  Being  both 
vascular  and  highly  organized,  so  as  to  be  very 


CHARACTER.  135 

sensible   of  pain ;    and   intellectual,   so   as   to    see 
reason  and  glory  in  a  matter. 

Of  that  constitutional  force,  which  yields  the 
supplies  of  the  day,  they  have  the  more  than  enough, 
the  excess  which  creates  courage  on  fortitude,  gen 
ius  in  poetry,  invention  in  mechanics,  enterprise 
in  trade,  magnificence  in  wealth,  splendor  in  cer 
emonies,  petulance  and  projects  in  youth.  The 
young  men  have  a  rude  health  which  runs  into 
peccant  humors.  They  drink  brandy  like  water, 
cannot  expend  their  quantities  of  waste  strength 
on  riding,  hunting,  swimming,  and  fencing,  and 
run  into  absurd  frolics  with  the  gravity  of  the 
Eumenides.  They  stoutly  carry  into  every  nook^ 
and  corner  of  the  earth  their  turbulent  sense  ; 
leaving  no  lie  uncontradicted  ;  no  pretension  un- 
examined.  They  chew  hasheesh  ;  cut  themselves 
with  poisoned  creases  ;  swing  their  hammock  in  the 
boughs  of  the  Bohon  Upas  ;  taste  every  poison  ; 
buy  every  secret ;  at  Naples,  they  put  St.  Janua- 
rius's  blood  in  an  alembic ;  they  saw  a  hole  into 
the  head  of  the  "  winking  Virgin,"  to  know  why 
she  winks  ;  measure  with  an  English  footrule  every 
cell  of  the  Inquisition,  every  Turkish  caaba,  every 
Holy  of  holies  ;  translate  and  send  to  Bentley  the 
arcanum  bribed  and  bullied  away  from  shuddering 
Bramins  ;  and  measure  their  own  strength  by  the 


136  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

terror  they  cause.  These  travellers  are  of  every 
class,  the  best  and  the  worst  \  and  it  may  easily  hap 
pen  that  those  of  rudest  behavior  are  taken  notice 
of  and  remembered.  The  Saxon  melancholy  in  the 
vulgar  rich  and  poor  appears  as  gushes  of  ill-humor, 
which  every  check  exasperates  into  sarcasm  and  vi 
tuperation.  There  are  multitudes  of  rude  young 
English  who  have  the  self-sufficiency  and  bluntness 
of  their  nation,  and  who,  with  their  disdain  of  the 
rest  of  mankind,  and  with  this  indigestion  and  choler. 
have  made  the  English  traveller  a  proverb  for  un 
comfortable  and  offensive  manners.  It  was  no  bad 
description  of  the  Briton  generically,  what  was 
said  two  hundred  years  ago,  of  one  particular  Ox 
ford  scholar  :  te  He  was  a  very  bold  man,  uttered 
any  thing  that  came  into  his  mind,  not  only  among 
his  companions,  but  in  public  coffee-houses,  and 
would  often  speak  his  mind  of  particular  persons 
then  accidentally  present,  without  examining  the 
company  he  was  in  ;  for  which  he  was  often  repri 
manded,  and  several  times  threatened  to  be  kicked 
and  beaten." 

The  common  Englishman  is  prone  to  forget  a 
cardinal  article  in  the  bill  of  social  rights,  that 
every  man  has  a  right  to  his  own  ears.  No  man 
can  claim  to  usurp  more  than  a  few  cubic  feet  of 
the  audibilities  of  a  public  room,  or  to  put  upon 


CHARACTER.  137 

the  company  with  the  loud  statement  of  his  crotch 
ets  or  personalities. 

But  it  is  in  the  deep  traits  of  race  that  the  for 
tunes  of  nations  are  written,  and  however  derived, 
whether  a  happier  tribe  or  mixture  of  tribes,  the 
air,  or  what  circumstance,  that  mixed  for  them  the 
golden  mean  of  temperament,  —  here  exists  the 
best  stock  in  the  world,  broad-fronted,  broad- 
bottomed,  best  for  depth,  range,  and  equability, 
men  of  aplomb  and  reserves,  great  range  and  many 
moods,  strong  instincts,  yet  apt  for  culture  ;  war- 
class  as  well  as  clerks  ;  earls  and  tradesmen  ;  wise 
minority,  as  well  as  foolish  majority  ;  abysmal  tem 
perament,  hiding  wells  of  wrath,  and  glooms  on 
which  no  sunshine  settles  ;  alternated  with  a  com 
mon  sense  and  humanity  which  hold  them  fast  to 
every  piece  of  cheerful  duty ;  making  this  tem 
perament  a  sea  to  which  all  storms  are  superficial ; 
a  race  to  which  their  fortunes  flow,  as  if  they 
alone  had  the  elastic  organization  at  once  fine  and 
robust  enough  for  dominion ;  as  if  the  burly  inex 
pressive,  now  mute  and  contumacious,  now  fierce 
and  sharp-tongued  dragon,  which  once  made  the 
island  light  with  his  fiery  breath,  had  bequeathed 
his  ferocity  to  his  conqueror.  They  hide  virtues 
under  vices,  or  the  semblance  of  them.  It  is  the 
misshapen  hairy  Scandinavian  troll  again,  who 

10    * 

J./V 


138  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

lifts  the  cart  out  of  the  mire,  or  "  threshes  the 
corn  that  ten  day-laborers  could  not  end,"  but  it 
is  done  in  the  dark,  and  with  muttered  maledic 
tions.  He  is  a  churl  with  a  soft  place  in  his  heart, 
whose  speech  is  a  brash  of  bitter  waters,  but  who 
loves  to  help  you  at  a  pinch.  He  says  no,  and 
serves  you,  and  your  thanks  disgust  him.  Here 
was  lately  a  cross-grained  miser,  odd  and  ugly,  re 
sembling  in  countenance  the  portrait  of  Punch, 
with  the  laugh  left  out ;  rich  by  his  own  industry ; 
sulking  in  a  lonely  house  ;  who  never  gave  a  dinner 
to  any  man,  and  disdained  all  courtesies ;  yet  as  true 
a  worshipper  of  beauty  in  form  and  color  as  ever 
existed,  and  profusely  pouring  over  the  cold  mind 
of  his  countrymen  creations  of  grace  and  truth,  re 
moving  the  reproach  of  sterility  from  English  art, 
catching  from  their  savage  climate  every  fine  hint, 
and  importing  into  their  galleries  every  tint  and  trait 
of  sunnier  cities  and  skies  ;  making  an  era  in  paint 
ing  ;  and,  when  he  saw  that  the  splendor  of  one  of 
his  pictures  in  the  Exhibition  dimmed  his  rival's 
that  hung  next  it,  secretly  took  a  brush  and  black 
ened  his  own. 

They  do  not  wear  their  heart  in  their  sleeve  for 
Jaws  to  peck  at.  They  have  that  phlegm  or  staid- 
ness,  which  it  is  a  compliment  to  disturb. -\  "Great 
men,"  said  Aristotle,  "are  always  of  a  nature 


CHARACTER.  139 

originally  melancholy."  'Tis  the  habit  of  a  mind 
which  attaches  to  abstractions  with  a  passion  which 
gives  vast  results.  They  dare  to  displease,  they 
do  not  speak  to  expectation.  They  like  the  savers 
of  No,  better  than  the  sayers  of  Yes.  Each  of 
them  has  an  opinion  which  he  feels  it  becomes  him 
to  express  all  the  more  that  it  differs  from  yours. 
They  are  meditating  opposition.  This  gravity  is 
inseparable  from  minds  of  great  resources. 

There  is  an  English  hero  superior  to  the  French, 
the  German,  the  Italian,  or  the  Greek.  When  he 
is  brought  to  the  strife  with  fate,  he  sacrifices  a 
richer  material  possession,  and  on  more  purely 
metaphysical  grounds.  He  is  there  with  his  own 
consent,  face  to  face  with  fortune,  which  he  defies. 
On  deliberate  choice,  and  from  grounds  of  character, 
he  has  elected  his  part  to  live  and  die  for,  and  dies 
with  grandeur.  This  race  has  added  new  elements 
to  humanity,  and  has  a  deeper  root  in  the  world. 

They, have  great  range  of  scale,  from  ferocity  to 
exquisite  refinement.  With  larger  scale,  they 
have  great  retrieving  power.  After  running  each 
tendency  to  an  extreme,  they  try  another  tack  with 
equal  heat.  More  intellectual  than  other  races,  when 
they  live  with  other  races,  they  do  not  take  their 
language,  but  bestow  their  own.  They  subsidize 
other  nations,  and  are  not  subsidized.  They  pros- 


140  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

elyte,  and  are  not  proselyted.  They  assimilate 
other  races  to  themselves,  and  are  not  assimilated. 
The  English  did  not  calculate  the  conquest  of 
the  Indies.  It  fell  to  their  character.  So  they 
administer  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  the  codes 
of  every  empire  and  race  ;  in  Canada,  old  French 
law  ;  in  the  Mauritius,  the  Code  Napoleon  ;  in  the 
West  Indies,  the  edicts  of  the  Spanish  Cortes  ;  in 
the  East  Indies,  the  Laws  of  Menu  ;  in  the  Isle  of 
Man,  of  the  Scandinavian  Thing  ;  at  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  of  the  old  Netherlands  ;  and  in  the 
Ionian  Islands,  the  Pandects  of  Justinian. 

They  are  very  conscious  of  their  advantageous 
position  in  history.  England  is  the  lawgiver,  the 
patron,  the  instructor,  the  ally.  Compare  the  tone 
of  the  French  and  of  the  English  press  :  the 
first  querulous,  captious,  sensitive  about  English 
opinion  ;  the  English  press  is  never  timorous  about 
French  opinion,  but  arrogant  and  contemptuous. 

They  are  testy  and  headstrong  through  an  ex 
cess  of  will  and  bias  ;  churlish  as  men  sometimes 
please  to  be  who  do  not  forget  a  debt,  who  ask  no 
favors,  and  who  will  do  what  they  like  with  their 
own.  With  education  and  intercourse,  these  asper 
ities  wear  off,  and  leave  the  good  will  pure.  If 
anatomy  is  reformed  according  to  national  tenden 
cies,  I  suppose,  the  spleen  will  hereafter  be  found 


CHARACTER.  141 

in  the  Englishman,  not  found  in  the  American,  and 
differencing  the  one  from  the  other.  I  anticipate 
another  anatomical  discovery,  that  this  organ  will 
be  found  to  be  cortical  and  caducous,  that  they  are 
superficially  morose,  but  at  last  tender-hearted,' 
herein  differing  from  Rome  and  the  Latin  nations. 
Nothing  savage,  nothing  mean  resides  in  the  Eng 
lish  heart.  They  are  subject  to  panics  of  credulity 
and  of  rage,  but  the  temper  of  the  nation,  how 
ever  disturbed,  settles  itself  soon  and  easily,  as,  in 
this  temperate  zone,  the  sky  after  whatever  storms 
clears  again,  and  serenity  is  its  normal  condition. 

A  saving  stupidity  masks  and  protects  their  per 
ception  as  the  curtain  of  the  eagle's  eye.  Our 
swifter  Americans,  when  they  first  deal  with  Eng 
lish,  pronounce  them  stupid  ;  but,  later,  do  them 
justice  as  people  who  wear  well,  or  hide  their 
strength.  To  understand  the  power  of  perform 
ance  that  is  in  their  finest  wits,  in  the  patient 
Newton,  or  in  the  versatile  transcendent  poets,  or 
in  the  Dugdales,  Gibbons,  Hallams,  Eldons,  and 
Peels,  one  should  see  how  English  day-laborers 
hold  out.  High  and  low,  they  are  of  an  unctuous 
texture.  There  is  an  adipocere  in  their  constitu 
tion,  as  if  they  had  oil  also  for  their  mental  wheels, 
and  could  perform  vast  amounts  of  work  without 
damaging  themselves. 


142  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Even  the*scale  of  expense  on  which  people  live, 
and  to  which  scholars  and  professional  men  con 
form,  proves  the  tension  of  their  muscle,  when  vast 
numbers  are  found  who  can  each  lift  this  enormous 
load.  I  might  even  add,  their  daily  feasts  argue  a 
savage  vigor  of  body. 

No  nation  was  ever  so  rich  in  able  men  ;  "  gen 
tlemen,"  as  Charles  I.  said  of  Strafford,  "  whose 
abilities  might  make  a  prince  rather  afraid  than 
ashamed  in  the  greatest  affairs  of  state  ;  "  men  of 
such  temper,  that,  like  Baron  Vere,  "had  one  seen 
him  returning  from  a  victory,  he  would  by  his 
silence  have  suspected  that  he  had  lost  the  day ; 
and,  had  he  beheld  him  in  a  retreat,  he  would  have 
collected  him  a  conqueror  by  the  cheerfulness  of 
his  spirit."  * 

The  following  passage  from  the  Heimskringla 
might  almost  stand  as  a  portrait  of  the  mod 
ern  Englishman  :  —  "  Haldor  was  very  stout  and 
strong,  and  remarkably  handsome  in  appearances. 
King  Harold  gave  him  this  testimony,  that  he, 
among  all  his  men,  cared  least  about  doubtful  cir 
cumstances,  whether  they  betokened  clanger  or 
pleasure ;  for,  whatever  turned  up,  he  was  never  in 
higher  nor  in  lower  spirits,  never  slept  less  nor 
more  on  account  of  them,  nor  ate  nor  drank  but 

*  Fuller.     Worthies  of  England. 


CHARACTER.  143 

according  to  his  custom.    Haldor  was  not  a  man  of 

O 

many  words,  but  short  in  conversation,  told  his  opin 
ion  bluntly,  and  was  obstinate  and  hard:  and  this 
could  not  please  the  king,  who  had  many  clever 
people  about  him,  zealous  in  his  service.  Haldor 
remained  a  short  time  with  the  king,  and  then  came 
to  Iceland,  where  he  took  up  his  abode  in  Hiard- 
aholt,  and  dwelt  in  that  farm  to  a  very  advanced 
age."  * 

The  national  temper,  in  the  civil  history,  is  not 
flashy  or  whiffling.  The  slow,  deep  English  mass 
smoulders  with  fire,  which  at  last  sets  all  its  bor 
ders  in  flame.  The  wrath  of  London  is  not  French 
wrrath,  but  has  a  long  memory,  and,  in  its  hottest 
heat,  a  register  and  rule. 

Half  their  strength  they  put  not  forth.  They 
are  capable  of  a  sublime  resolution,  and  if  here 
after  the  war  of  races,  often  predicted,  and  making 
itself  a  war  of  opinions  also  (a  question  of  des 
potism  and  liberty  coming  from  Eastern  Europe), 
should  menace  the  English  civilization,  these  sea- 
kings  may  take  once  again  to  their  floating  castles, 
and  find  a  new  home  and  a  second  millennium  of 
power  in  their  colonies. 

The  stability  of  England  is  the  security  of  the 
modern  world.  If  the  English  race  were  as  mu- 

*  Heimskringla,  Laing's  translation,  vol.  iii.  p.  37. 


144  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

table  as  the  French,  what  reliance  ?  But  the  Eng  - 
lish  stand  for  liberty.  The  conservative,  money- 
loving,  lord-loving  English  are  yet  liberty-loving  ; 
and  so  freedom  is  safe  :  for  they  have  more  per 
sonal  force  than  any  other  people.  The  nation 
always  resist  the  immoral  action  of  their  govern 
ment.  They  think  humanely  on  the  affairs  of 
France,  of  Turkey,  of  Poland,  of  Hungary,  of 
Schleswig  Holstein,  though  overborne  by  the  state 
craft  of  the  rulers  at  last. 

Does  the  early  history  of  each  tribe  show  the 
permanent  bias,  which,  though  not  less  potent,  is 
masked,  as  the  tribe  spreads  its  activity  into  col 
onies,  commerce,  codes,  arts,  letters  ?  The  early 
history  shows  it,  as  the  musician  plays  the  air  which 
he  proceeds  to  conceal  in  a  tempest  of  variations. 
In  Alfred,  in  the  Northmen,  one  may  read  the 
genius  of  the  English  society,  namely,  that  private 
life  is  the  place  of  honor.  Glory,  a  career,  and 
ambition,  words  familiar  to  the  longitude  of  Paris, 
are  seldom  heard  in  English  speech.  Nelson  wrote 
from  their  hearts  his  homely  telegraph,  "  England 
expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty." 

For  actual  service,  for  the  dignity  of  a  profes 
sion,  or  to  appease  diseased  or  inflamed  talent,  the 
army  and  navy  may  be  entered  (the  worst  boys 
doing  well  in  the  navy)  ;  and  the  civil  service,  in 


CIIAUACTKK.  145 

departments  where  serious  official  work  is  done  ; 
and  they  hold  in  esteem  the  barrister  engaged  in 
the  severer  studies  of  the  law.  But  the  calm, 
sound,  and  most  British  Briton  shrinks  from  pub 
lic  life,  as  charlatanism,  and  respects  an  economy 
founded  on  agriculture,  coal-mines,  manufactures, 
or  trade,  which  secures  an  independence  through 
the  creation  of  real  values. 

They  wish  neither  to  command  or  obey,  but  to 
be  kings  in  their  own  houses.  They  are  intellec 
tual  and  deeply  enjoy  literature  ;  they  like  well  to 
have  the  world  served  up  to  them  in  books,  maps, 
models,  and  every  mode  of  exact  information,  and, 
though  not  creators  in  art,  they  value  its  refine 
ment.  They  are  ready  for  leisure,  can  direct  and 
fill  their  own  day,  nor  need  so  much  as  others  the 
constraint  of  a  necessity.  But  the  history  of  the 
nation  discloses,  at  every  turn,  this  original  predi 
lection  for  private  independence,  and,  however 
this  inclination  may  have  been  disturbed  by  the 
bribes  with  which  their  vast  colonial  power  has 
warped  men  out  of  orbit,  the  inclination  endures, 
and  forms  and  reforms  the  laws,  letters,  manners, 
and  occupations.  They  choose  that  welfare  which 
is  compatible  with  the  commonwealth,  knowing  that 
such  alone  is  stable  ;  as  wise  merchants  prefer  in 
vestments  in  the  three  per  cents. 
13 


CHAPTER    IX. 

COCKAYNE. 

English  are  a  nation  of  humorists.  Indi 
vidual  right  is  pushed  to  the  uttermost  bound  com 
patible  with  public  order.  Property  is  so  perfect, 
that  it  seems  the  craft  of  that  race, "and  not  to  exist 
elsewhere.  The  king  cannot  step  on  an  acre  which 
the  peasant  refuses  to  sell.  A  testator'  endows  a 
dog  or  a  rookery,  and  Europe  cannot  interfere  with 
his  absurdity.  Every  individual  has  his  particular 
way  of  living,  which  he  pushes  to  folly,  and  the 
decided  sympathy  of  his  compatriots  is  engaged  to 
back  up  Mr.  Crump's  whim  by  statutes,  and  chan 
cellors,  and  horse-guards.  There  is  no  freak  so 
ridiculous  but  some  Englishman  has  attempted  to 
immortalize  by  money  and  law.  British  citizen 
ship  is  as  omnipotent  as  Roman  was.  Mr.  Cock 
ayne  is  very  sensible  of  this.  The  pursy  man  means 
by  freedom  the  right  to  do  as  he  pleases,  and  does 
wrong  in  order  to  feel  his  freedom,  and  makes  a 
conscience  of  persisting  in  it. 

(146) 


COCKAYNE.  147 

He  is  intensely  patriotic,  for  his  country  is  so 
small.  His  confidence  in  the  power  and  perform 
ance  of  his  nation  makes  him  provokingly  incu 
rious  about  other  nations.  He  dislikes  foreigners. 
Swedenborg,  who  lived  much  in  England,,  notes 
"  the  similitude  of  minds  among  the  English,  in 
consequence  of  which  they  contract  familiarity 
with  friends  who  are  of  that  nation,  and  seldom 
with  others  :  and  they  regard  foreigners,  as  one 
looking  through  a  telescope  from  the  top  of  a  pal 
ace  regards  those  who  dwell  or  wander  about  oat 
of  the  city."  A  much  older  traveller,  the  Vene 
tian  who  wrote  the  "  Relation  of  England,"  *  in 
1500,  says  :  —  "  The  English  are  great  lovers  of 
themselves,  and  of  every  thing  belonging  to  them. 
They  think  that  there  are  no  other  men  than  them 
selves,  and  no  other  world  but  England ;  and, 
whenever  they  see  a  handsome  foreigner,  they  say 
that  he  looks  like  an  Englishman,  and  it  is  a  great 
pity  he  should  not  be  an  Englishman  ;  and  when 
ever  they  partake  of  any  delicacy  with  a  foreigner, 
they  ask  him  whether  such  a  thing  is  made  in  his 
country."  When  he  adds  epithets  of  praise,  his  cli 
max  is  "  so  English  ;  "  and  when  he  wishes  to  pay 
you  the  highest  compliment,  he  says,  I  should  not 

*  Printed  by  the  Camden  Society. 


148  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

know  you  from  an  Englishman.  France  is,  by  its  nat 
ural  contrast,  a  kind  of  blackboard  on  which  English 
character  draws  its  own  traits  in  chalk.  This  arro 
gance  habitually  exhibits  itself  in  allusions  to  the 
French.  I  suppose  that  all  men  of  English  blood 
in  America,  Europe,  or  Asia,  have  a  secret  feeling 
of  joy  that  they  are  not  French  natives.  Mr.  Cole 
ridge  is  said  to  have  given  public  thanks  to  God, 
at  the  close  of  a  lecture,  that  he  had  defended  him 
from  being  able  to  utter  a  single  sentence  in  the 
French  language.  I  have  found  that  Englishmen 
have  such  a  good  opinion  of  England,  that  the  or 
dinary  phrases,  in  all  good  society,  of  postponing  or 
disparaging  one's  own  things  in  talking  with  a 
stranger,  are  seriously  mistaken  by  them  for  an  in- 
suppressible  homage  to  the  merits  of  their  nation  ; 
and  the  New  Yorker  or  Pennsylvanian  who  mod 
estly  laments  the  disadvantage  of  a  new  country, 
log-huts,  and  savages,  is  surprised  by  the  instant 
and  unfeigned  commiseration  of  the  whole  com 
pany,  who  plainly  account  all  the  world  out  of 
England  a  heap  of  rubbish. 

The  same  insular  limitation  pinches  his  foreign"^ 
politics.     He  sticks   to  his   traditions   and  usages, 
and,  so  help  him  God !  he  will  force  his  island  by 
laws  down  the  throat  of  great  countries,  like  India, 
China,   Canada,   Australia,- "and    not   only    so,   but 


COCKAYNE.  149 

impose  Wapping  on  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  and 
trample  down  all  nationalities  with  his  taxed  boots. 
Lord  Chatham  goes  for  liberty,  and  no  taxation 
without  representation  ;  —  for  that  is  British  law  ,* 
but  not  a  hobnail  shall  they  dare  make  in  America, 
but  buy  their  nails  in  England,  —  for  that  also  is 
British  law  ;  and  the  fact  that  British  commerce 
was  to  be  re-created  by  the  independence  of  Amer 
ica,  took  them  all  by  surprise. 

In  short,  I  am  afraid  that  English  nature  is  so 
rank  and  aggressive  as  to  be  a  little  incompatible 
with  every  other.  The  world  is  not  wide  enough 
for  two. 

But,  beyond  this  nationality,  it  must  be  admitted, 
the  island  offers  a  daily  worship  to  the  old  Norse 
god  Brage,  celebrated  among  our  Scandinavian 
forefathers,  for  his  eloquence  and  majestic  air. 
The  English  have  a  steady  courage,  that  fits  them 
for  great  attempts  and  endurance  :  they  have  also 
a  petty  courage,  through  which  every  man  de 
lights  in  showing  himself  for  what  he  is,  and  in 
doing  what  he  can ;  so  that,  in  all  companies, 
each  of  them  has  too  good  an  opinion  of  himself 
to  imitate  any  body.  He  hides  no  defect  of  his. 
form,  features,  dress,  connection,  or  birthplace,  for 
he  thinks  every  circumstance  belonging  to  him 
13* 


150  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

comes  recommended  to  you.  If  one  of  them  have 
a  bald,  or  a  red,  or  a  green  head,  or  bow  legs,  or  a 
scar,  or  mark,  or  a  paunch,  or  a  squeaking  or  a 
raven  voice,  he  has  persuaded  himself  that  there 
is  something  modish  and  becoming  in  it,  and  that 
it  sits  well  on  him. 

But  nature  makes  nothing  in  vain,  and  this  little 
superfluity  of  self-regard  in  the  English  brain,  is 
one  of  the  secrets  of  their  power  and  history. 
For,  it  sets  every  man  on  being  and  doing  what 
he  really  is  and  can.  It  takes  away  a  dodging, 
skulking,  secondary  air,  and  encourages  a  frank 
and  manly  bearing,  so  that  each  man  makes  the 
most  of  himself,  and  loses  no  opportunity  for  want 
•  of  pushing.  A  man's  personal  defects  will  com 
monly  have  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  precisely 
that  importance  which  they  have  to  himself.  If 
he  makes  light  of  them,  so  will  other  men.  We 
all  find  in  these  a  convenient  meter  of  character, 
since  a  little  man  would  be  ruined  by  the  vexation. 
I  remember  a  shrewd  politician,  in  one  of  our 
western  cities,  told  me,  "  that  he  had  known  sev 
eral  successful  statesmen  made  by  their  foible." 
And  another,  an  ex-governor  of  Illinois,  said  to 
me,  "  If  a  man  knew  any  thing,  he  would  sit  in  a 
corner  and  be  modest ;  but  he  is  such  an  ignorant 


COCKAYNE.  151 

peacock,  that  he  goes  bustling  up  and  down,  and 
hits  on  extraordinary  discoveries." 

There  is  also  this  benefit  in  brag,  that  the  speak 
er  is  unconsciously  expressing  his  own  ideal.  Hu 
mor  him  by  all  means,  draw  it  all  out,  and  hold 
him  to  it.  Their  culture  generally  enables  the 
travelled  English  to  avoid  any  ridiculous  extremes 
of  this  self-pleasing,  and  to  give  it  an  agreeable 
air.  Then  the  natural  disposition  is  fostered  by 
the  respect  which  they  find  entertained  in  the 
world  for  English  ability.  It  was  said  of  Louis 
XIV.,  that  his  gait  and  air  were  becoming  enough 
in  so  great  a  monarch,  yet  would  have  been  ridicu 
lous  in  another  man  ;  so  the  prestige  of  the  Eng 
lish  name  warrants  a  certain  confident  bearing, 
which  a  Frenchman  or  Belgian  could  not  carry. 
At  a)l  events,  they  feel  themselves  at  liberty  to 
assume  the  most  extraordinary  tone  on  the  subject 
of  English  merits. 

An  English  lady  on  the  Rhine  hearing  a  Ger 
man  speaking  of  her  party  as  foreigners,  exclaimed, 
"  No,  we  are  not  foreigners  ;  we  are  English  ;  it 
is  you  that  are  foreigners."  They  tell  you  daily, 
in  London,  the  story  of  the  Frenchman  and  Eng 
lishman  who  quarrelled.  Both  were  unwilling  to 
fight,  but  their  companions  put  them  up  to  it :  at 
last,  it  was  agreed,  that  they  should  fight  alone,  in 


152  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

the  dark,  and  with  pistols  :  the  candles  were  put 
out,  and  the  Englishman,  to  make  sure  not  to  hit 
any  body,  fired  up  the  chimney,  and  brought  down 
the  Frenchman.  They  have  no  curiosity  about 
foreigners,  and  answer  any  information  you  may 
volunteer  with  "  Oh,  Oh !  "  until  the  informant 
makes  up  his  mind,  that  they  shall  die  in  their 
ignorance,  for  any  help  he  will  offer.  There  are 
really  no  limits  to  this  conceit,  though  brighter  men 
among  them  make  painful  efforts  to  be  candid. 

The  habit  of  brag  runs  through  all  classes,  from 
the  Times  newspaper  through  politicians  and  poets, 
through  Wordsworth,  Carlyle,  Mill,  and  Sydney 
Smith,  down  to  the  boys  of  Eton.  In  the  gravest 
treatise  on  political  economy,  in  a  philosophical 
essay,  in  books  of  science,  one  is  surprised  by  the 
most  innocent  exhibition  of  unflinching  nationality, 
In  a  tract  on  Corn,  a  most  amiable  and  accom 
plished  gentleman  writes  thus  :  —  "  Though  Brit 
ain,  according  to  Bishop  Berkeley's  idea,  were 
surrounded  by  a  wall  of  brass  ten  thousand  cubits 
in  height,  still  she  would  as  far  excel  the  rest  of 
the  globe  in  riches,  as  she  now  does,  both  in  this 
secondary  quality,  and  in  the  more  important  ones 
of  freedom,  virtue,  and  science."  * 

*  William  Spence. 


COCKAYNE.  155 

The  English  dislike  the  American  structure  of 
society,  whilst  yet  trade,  mills,  public  education, 
and  chartism  are  doing  what  they  can  to  create  in 
England  the  same  social  condition.  America  is 
the  paradise  of  the  economists  ;  is*  the  favorable 
exception  invariably  quoted  to  the  rules  of  ruin  ; 
but  when  he  speaks  directly  of  the  Americans, 
the  islander  forgets  his  philosophy,  and  remembers 
his  disparaging  anecdotes. 

But  this  childish  patriotism  costs  something,  like 
all  narrowness,  The  English  sway  of  their  colo 
nies  has  no  root  of  kindness.  They  govern  by 
their  arts  and  ability ;  they  are  more  just  than 
kind  ;  and,  whenever,  an  abatement  of  their  power 
is  felt,  they  have  not  conciliated  the  affection  on 
which  to  rely. 

Coarse  local  distinctions,  as  those  of  nation, 
province,  or  town,  are  useful  in  the  absence  of 
real  ones  ;  but  we  must  not  insist  on  these  acci 
dental  lines.  Individual  traits  are  always  tri 
umphing  over  national  ones.  There  is  no  fence 
in  metaphysics  discriminating  Greek,  or  English, 
or  Spanish  science.  JEsop,  and  Montaigne,  Cer 
vantes,  and  Saadi  are  men  of  the  \vorld  ;  and  to 
wave  our  own  flag  at  the  dinner  table  or  in  the 
University,  is  to  carry  the  boisterous  dulness  of  a 
fire-club  into  a  polite  circle.  Nature  and  destiny 


154  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

are  always  on  the  watch  for  our  follies.  Nature 
trips  us  up  when  we  strut ;  and  there  are  curious 
examples  in  history  on  this  very  point  of  national 
pride. 

George  of  Capp.adocia,  born  at  Epiphania  in 
Cilicia,  was  a  low  parasite,  who  got  a  lucrative 
contract  to  supply  the  army  with  bacon.  A  rogue 
and  informer,  he  got  rich,  and  was  forced  to  run 
from  justice.  He  saved  his  money,  embraced 
Arianism,  collected  a  library,  and  got  promoted 
by  a  faction  to  the  episcopal  throne  of  Alexan 
dria.  When  Julian  came,  A.  D.  361,  George  was 
dragged  to  prison  ;  the  prison  was  burst  open  by 
the  mob,  and  George  was  lynched,  as  he  deserved. 
And  this  precious  knave  became,  in  good  time, 
Saint  George  of  England,  patron  of  chivalry,  em 
blem  of  victory  and  civility,  and  the  pride  of  the 
best  blood  of  the  modern  world. 

Strange,  that  the  solid  truth-speaking  Briton 
should  derive  from  an  impostor.  Strange,  that  the 
New  World  should  have  no  better  luck,  —  that 
broad  America  must  wear  the  name  of  a  thief. 
Amerigo  Vespucci,  the  pickledealer  at  Seville, 
who  went  out,  in  1499,  a  subaltern  with  Hojeda, 
and  whose  highest  naval  rank  was  boatswain's 
mate  in  an  expedition  that  never  sailed,  managed 
in  this  lying  world  to  supplant  Columbus,  and 


COCKAYNE.  155 

baptize  half  the  earth  with,  his  own  dishonest  name. 
Thus  nobody  can  throw  stones.  We  are  equally 
badly  off  in  our  founders ;  and  the  false  pickle- 
dealer  is  an  offset  to  the  false  bacon-seller. 


CHAPTER    X. 

WEALTH. 

THERE  is  no  country  in  which  so  absolute  a  hom 
age  is  paid  to  wealth.  In  America,  there  is  a 
touch  of  shame  when  a  man  exhibits  the  evidences 
of  large  property,  as  if,  after  all,  it  needed  apology. 
But  the  Englishman  has  pure  pride  in  his  wealth, 
and  esteems  it  a  final  certificate.  A  coarse  logic 
rules  throughout  all  English  souls ;  —  if  you  have 
merit,  can  you  not  show  it  by  your  good  clothes, 
and  coach,  and  horses?  How  can  a  man  be  a 
gentleman  without  a  pipe  of  wine  ?  Haydon  says, 
"  there  is  a  fierce  resolution  to  make  every  man 
live  according  to  the  means  he  possesses."  There 
is  a  mixture  of  religion  in  it.  They  are  under  the 
Jewish  law,  and  read  with  sonorous  emphasis  that 
their  days  shall  be  long  in  the  land,  they  shall 
have  sons  and  daughters,  flocks  and  herds,  wine 
and  oil.  In  exact  proportion,  is  the  reproach  of 
poverty.  They  do  not  wish  to  be  represented 
except  by  opulent  men.  An  Englishman  who  has 

(156) 


WEALTH.  157 

lost  his  fortune,  is  said  to  have  died  of  a  broken 
heart.  The  last  term  of  insult  is,  "  a  beggar." 
Nelson  said,  (t  the  want  of  fortune  is  a  crime  which 
I  can  never  get  over."  Sydney  Smith  said,  te  pov 
erty  is  infamous  in  England."  And  one  of  their 
recent  writers  speaks,  in  reference  to  a  private 
and  scholastic  life,  of  "  the  grave  moral  deteriora 
tion  which  follows  an  empty  exchequer."  You 
shall  find  this  sentiment,  if  not  so  frankly  put,  yet 
deeply  implied,  in  the  novels  and  romances  of  the 
present  century,  and  not  only  in  these,  but  in  biog 
raphy,  and  in  the  votes  of  public  assemblies,  in 
the  tone  of  the  preaching,  and  in  the  table-talk. 

I  was  lately  turning  over  Wood's  Athena  Ox- 
onienses,  and  looking  naturally  for  another  stand 
ard  in  a  chronicle  of  the  scholars  of  Oxford  for 
two  hundred  years.  But  I  found  the  two  dis 
graces  in  that,  .as  in  most  English  books,  are,  first, 
disloyalty  to  Church  and  State,  and,  second,  to  be 
born  poor,  or  'to  come  to  poverty.  A  natural 
fruit  of  England  is  the  brutal  political  economy. 
Malthus  finds  no  cover  laid  at  nature's  table  for 
the  laborer's  son.  In  1809,  the  majority  in  Par 
liament  expressed  itself  by  the  language  of  Mr. 
Fuller  in  the  House  of  Commons,  ."if  you  do 
not  like  the  country,  damn  you,  you  can  leave  it." 
When  Sir  S.  Romilly  proposed  his  bill  forbidding 
14 


158  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

parish  officers  to  bind  children  apprentices  at  a 
greater  distance  than  forty  miles  from  their  home, 
Poel  opposed,  and  Mr.  Wortley  said,  "though,  in 
the  higher  ranks,  to  cultivate  family  affections  was  a 
good  thing,  'twas  not  so  among  the  lower  orders. 
Better  take  them  away  from  those  who  might  de 
prave  them.  And  it  was  highly  injurious  to  trade 
to  stop  binding  to  manufacturers,  as  it  must  raise 
the  price  of  labor,  and  of  manufactured  goods." 

The  respect  for  truth  of  facts  in  England,  is 
equalled  only  by  the  respect  for  wealth.  It  is  at 
once  the  pride  of  art  of  the  Saxon,  as  he  is  a 
wealth-maker,  and  his  passion  for  independence. 
The  Englishman  believes  that  every  man  must  take 
care  of  himself,  and  has  himself  to  thank,  if  he  do 
not  mend  his  condition.  To  pay  their  debts  is  their 
national  point  of  honor.  From  the  Exchequer  and 
the  East  India  House  to  the  huckster's  shop,  every 
thing  prospers,  because  it  is  solvent.  The  British 
armies  are  solvent,  and  pay  for  what  they  take. 
The  British  empire  is  solvent ;  for,  in  spite  of  the 
huge  national  debt,  the  valuation  mounts.  During 
the  war  from  1789  to  1815,  whilst  they  complained 
that  they  were  taxed  within  an  inch  of  their  lives, 
and,  by  dint  of  enormous  taxes,  were  subsidizing 
all  the  continent  against  France,  the  English  were 
growing  rich  every  year  faster  than  any  people 


WEALTH.  159 

ever  grew  before.  It  is  their  maxim,  that  the  \ 
weight  of  taxes  must  be  calculated  not  by  what  is 
taken,  but  by  what  is  left.  Solvency  is  in  the 
ideas  and  mechanism  of  an  Englishman.  The 
Crystal  Palace  is  not  considered  honest  until  it 
pays  ;  —  no  matter  how  much  convenience,  beauty, 
or  eclat,  it  must  be  self-supporting.  They  are 
contented  with  slower  steamers,  as  long  as  they 
know  that  swifter  boats  lose  money.  They  pro 
ceed  logically  by  the  double  method  of  labor  and 
thrift.  Every  household  exhibits  an  exact  econ 
omy,  and  nothing  of  that  uncalculated  headlong 
expenditure  which  families  use  in  America.  If 
they  cannot  pay,  they  do  not  buy ;  for  they  have 
no  presumption  of  better  fortunes  next  year,  as  our 
people  have  ;  and  they  say  without  shame,  I  cannot 
afford  it.  Gentlemen  do  not  hesitate  to  ride 
in  the  second-class  cars,  or  in  the  second  cabin. 
An  economist,  or  a  man  who  can  proportion  his 
means  and  his  ambition,  or  bring  the  year  round 
with  expenditure  which  expresses  his  character, 
without  embarrassing  one  day  of  his  future,  is 
already  a  master  of  life,  and  a  freeman.  Lord 
Burleigh  writes  to  his  son,  "  that  one  ought  never 
to  devote  more  than  two  thirds  of  his  income  to 
the  ordinary  expenses  of  life,  since  the  extraordi 
nary  will  be  certain  to  absorb  the  other  third." 


160  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

The  ambition  to  create  value  evokes  every  kind 
of  ability,  government  becomes  a  manufacturing 
corporation,  and  every  house  a  mill.  The  headlongX 
bias  to  utility  will  let  no  talent  lie  in  a  napkin,  —  if 
possible,  will  teach  spiders  to  weave  silk  stockings. 
An  Englishman,  while  he  eats  and  drinks  no  more, 
or  not  much  more  than  another  man,  labors  three- 
times  as  many  hours  in  the  course  of  a  year,  as 
any  other  European ;  or,  his  life  as  a  workman  is 
three  lives.  He  works  fast.  Every  thing  in  Eng 
land  is  at  a  quick  pace.  They  have  reinforced 
their  own  productivity,  by  the  creation  of  that 
marvellous  machinery  which  differences  this  age 
from  any  other  age. 

'Tis  a  curious  chapter  in  modern  history,  the 
growth  of  the  machine-shop.  Six  hundred  years 
ago,  Roger  Bacon  explained  the  precession  of  the 
equinoxes,  the  consequent  necessity  of  the  reform 
of  the  calendar ;  measured  the  length  of  the  year, 
invented  gunpowder ;  and  announced,  (as  if  look 
ing  from  his  lofty  cell,  over  five  centuries,  into 
ours,)  "  that  machines  can  be  constructed  to  drive 
ships  more  rapidly  than  a  whole  galley  of  rowers 
could  do ;  nor  would  they  need  any  thing  but  a 
pilot  to  steer  them.  Carriages  also  might  be  con 
structed  to  move  with  an  incredible  speed,  without 
the  aid  of  any  animal.  Finally,  it  would  not  be 


WEALTH.  161 

impossible  to  make  machines,  which,  by  means  of 
a  suit  of  wings,  should  fly  in  the  air  in  the  manner 
of  birds."  But  the  secret  slept  with  Bacon.  The 
six  hundred  years  have  not  yet  fulfilled  his  words. 
Two  centuries  ago,  the  sawing  of  timber  was  done 
by  hand  ;  the  carriage  wheels  ran  on  wooden  axles  ; 
the  land  was  tilled  by  wooden  ploughs.  And  it 
M~as  to  little  purpose,  that  they  had  pit-coal,  or  that 
looms  were  improved,  unless  Watt  and  Stephenson 
had  taught  them  to  work  force-pumps  and  power- 
looms,  by  steam.  The  great  strides  were  all  taken 
within  the  last  hundred  years.  The  Life  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  who  died,  the  other  day,  the  model 
Englishman,  very  properly  has,  for  a  frontispiece, 
a  drawing  of  the  spinning-jenny,  which  wove  the 
web  of  his  fortunes.  Hargreaves  invented  the 
spinning-jenny,  and  died  in  a  workhouse.  Ark- 
wright  improved  the  invention ;  and  the  machine 
dispensed  with  the  work  of  ninety-nine  men  :  that 
is,  one  spinner  could  do  as  much  work  as  one  hun 
dred  had  done  before.  The  loom  was  improved 
further.  But  the  men  would  sometimes  strike  for 
wages,  and  combine  against  the  masters,  and,  about 
1829-30,  much  fear  was  felt,  lest  the  trade  would 
be  drawn  away  by  these  interruptions,  and  the 
emigration  of  the  spinners,  to  Belgium  and  the 
United  States.  Iron  and  steel  are  very  obedient. 
14* 


162  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Whether  it  were  not  possible  to  make  a  spinner  that 
would  not  rebel,  nor  mutter,  nor  scowl,  nor  strike 
for  wages,  nor  emigrate  ?  At  the  solicitation  of  the 
masters,  after  a  mob  and  riot  at  Staley  Bridge,  Mr. 
Roberts  of  Manchester  undertook  to  create  this 
peaceful  fellow,  instead  of  the  quarrelsome  fellow 
God  had  made.  After  a  few  trials,  he  succeeded, 
and,  in  1830,  procured  a  patent  for  his  self-acting 
mule ;  a  creation,  the  delight  of  mill-owners,  and 
"  destined,"  they  said,  "  to  restore  order  among  the 
industrious  classes";  a  machine  requiring  only  a 
child's  hand  to  piece  the  broken  yarns.  As  Ark- 
wright  had  destroyed  domestic  spinning,  so  Roberts 
destroyed  the  factory  spinner.  The  power  of  ma 
chinery  in  Great  Britain,  in  mills,  has  been  com 
puted  to  be  equal  to  600,000,000  men,  one  man 
being  able  by  the  aid  of  steam  to  do  the  work 
which  required  two  hundred  and  fifty  men  to 
accomplish  fifty  years  ago.  The  production  has 
been  commensurate.  England  already  had  this 
laborious  race,  rich  soil,  water,  wood,  coal,  iron, 
and  favorable  climate.  Eight  hundred  years  ago, 
commerce  had  made  it  rich,  and  it  was  recorded, 
"  England  is  the  richest  of  all  the  northern  na 
tions."  The  Norman  historians  recite,  that  "in 
1067,  William  carried  with  him  into  Normandy, 
from  England,  more  gold  and  silver  than  had  ever 


WEALTH.  1 63 

before  been  seen  in  Gaul."  But  when,  to  this  labor 
and  trade,  and  these  native  resources  was  added 
this  goblin  of  steam,  with  his  myriad  arms,  never 
tired,  working  night  and  day  everlastingly,  the 
amassing  of  property  has  run  out  of  all  figures. 
It  makes  the  motor  of  the  last  ninety  years.  The 
steampipe  has  added  to  her  population  and 
wealth  the  equivalent  of  four  or  five  England s. 
Forty  thousand  ships  are  entered  in  Lloyd's  lists. 
The  yield  of  wheat  has  gone  on  from  2,000,000 
quarters  in  the  time  of  the  Stuarts,  to  13,000,000 
in  1854.  A  thousand  million  of  pounds  sterling 
are  said  to  compose  the  floating  money  of  com 
merce.  In  1848,  Lord  John  Russell  stated  that  the 
people  of  this  country  had  laid  out  £300,000,000 
of  capital  in  railways,  in  the  last  four  years.  But 
a  better  measure  than  these  sounding  figures,  is 
the  estimate,  that  there  is  wealth  enough  in  Eng 
land  to  support  the  entire  population  in  idleness 
for  one  year. 

The  wise,  versatile,  all-giving  machinery  makes 
chisels,  roads,  locomotives,  telegraphs.  Whitworth 
divides  a  bar  to  a  millionth  of  an  inch.  Steam 
twines  huge  cannon  into  wreaths,  as  easily  as  it 
braids  straw,  and  vies  with  the  volcanic  forces 
which  twisted  the  strata.  It  can  clothe  shingle 
mountains  with  ship-oaks,  make  sword-blades  that 


164  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

will  cut  gun-barrels  in  two.  In  Egypt,  it  can  plant 
forests,  and  bring  rain  after  three  thousand  years. 
Already  it  is  ruddering  the  balloon,  and  the  next 
war  will  be  fought  in  the  air.  But  another  machine 
more  potent  in  England  than  steam,  is  the  Bank. 
It  votes  an  issue  of  bills,  population  is  stimulated, 
and  cities  rise ;  it  refuses  loans,  and  emigration 
empties  the  country ;  trade  sinks ;  revolutions  break 
out ;  kings  are  dethroned.  By  these  new  agents 
our  social  system  is  moulded.  By  dint  of  steam  and 
of  money,  war  and  commerce  are  changed.  Na 
tions  have  lost  their  old  omnipotence;  the  patriotic 
tie  does  not  hold.  Nations  are  getting  obsolete, 
we  go  and  live  where  we  will.  Steam  has  enabled 
men  to  choose  what  law  they  will  live  under. 
Money  makes  place  for  them.  The  telegraph  is 
a  limp-band  that  will  hold  the  Fenris-wolf  of  war. 
For  now,  that  a  telegraph  line  runs  through  France 
and  Europe,  from  London,  every  message  it 
transmits  makes  stronger  by  one  thread,  the  band 
which  war  will  have  to  cut. 

The  introduction  of  these  elements  gives  new 
resources  to  existing  proprietors.  A  sporting  duke 
may  fancy  that  the  state  depends  on  the  House 
of  Lords,  but  the  engineer  sees,  that  every  stroke 
of  the  steam-piston  gives  value  to  the  dake's  land, 
fills  it  with  tenants ;  doubles,  quadruples,  ceu- 


WEALTH.  165 

tuples  the  duke's  capital,  and  creates  new  measures 
and  new  necessities  for  the  culture  of  his  children. 
Of  course,  it  draws  the  nobility  into  the  competi 
tion  as  stockholders  in  the  mine,  the  canal,  the 
railway,  in  the  application  of  steam  to  agriculture, 
and  sometimes  into  trade.  But  it  also  introduces 
large  classes  into  the  same  competition;  the  old 
energy  of  the  Norse  race  arms  itself  with  these 
magnificent  powers  ;  new  men  prove  an  overmatch 
for  the  land-owner,  and  the  mill  buys  out  the  castle. 
Scandinavian  Thor,  who  once  forged  his  bolts  in 
icy  Hecla,  and  built  galleys  by  lonely  fiords  ;  in 
England,  has  advanced  with  the  times,  has  shorn 
his  beard,  enters  Parliament,  sits  down  at  a  desk  in 
the  India  House,  and  lends  Miollnir  to  Birming 
ham  for  a  steam-hammer. 

The  creation  of  wealth  in  England  in  the  last 
ninety  years,  is  a  main  fact  in  modern  history. 
The  wealth  of  London  determines  prices  all  over 
the  globe.  All  things  precious,  or  useful,  or 
amusing,  or  intoxicating,  are  sucked  into  this  com 
merce  and  floated  to  London.  Some  English  pri 
vate  fortunes  reach,  and  some  exceed  a  million  of 
dollars  a  year.  A  hundred  thousand  palaces  adorn 
the  island.  All  that  can  feed  the  senses  and  pas 
sions,  all  that  can  succor  the  talent,  or  arm  the 
hands  of  the  intelligent  middle  class,  who  never 


166 


ENGLISH    TRAITS. 


spare  in  what  they  buy  for  their  own.  consumption  ; 
all  that  can  aid  science,  gratify  taste,  or  soothe 
comfort,  is  in  open  market.  Whatever  is  excellent 
and  beautiful  in  civil,  rural,  or  ecclesiastic  archi 
tecture ;  in  fountain,  garden,  or  grounds;  the 
English  noble  crosses  sea  and  land  to  see  and  to 
copy  at  home.  The  taste  and  science  of  thirty 
peaceful  generations  ;  the  gardens  which  Evelyn 
planted ;  the  temples  and  pleasure-houses  which 
Inigo  Jones  and  Christopher  Wren  built ;  the  wood 
that  Gibbons  carved ;  the  taste  of  foreign  and  do 
mestic  artists,  Shenstone,  Pope,  Brown,  Loudon, 
Paxton,  are  in  the  vast  auction,  and  the  hereditary 
principle  heaps  on  the  owner  of  to-day  the  benefit 
of  ages  of  owners.  The  present  possessors  are  to 
the  full  as  absolute  as  any  of  their  fathers,  in  choos 
ing  and  procuring  what  they  like.  This  comfort 
and  splendor,  the  breadth  of  lake  and  mountain, 
tillage,  pasture,  and  park,  sumptuous  castle  and 
modern  villa,  —  all  consist  with  perfect  order. 
They  have  no  revolutions ;  no  horse-guards  dictat 
ing  to  the  crown  ;  no  Parisian  poissardes  and  bar 
ricades  ;  no  mob :  but  drowsy  habitude,  daily 
dress-dinners,  wine,  and  ale,  and  beer,  and  gin, 
and  sleep. 

With  this  power  of  creation,  arid  this  passion  for 
independence,  property  has  reached  an  ideal  per- 


WEALTH.  1 67 

fection.  It  is  felt  and  treated  as  the  national 
life-blood.  The  laws  are  framed  to  give  property 
the  securest  possible  basis,  and  the  provisions 
to  lock  and  transmit  it  have  exercised  the  cun- 
ningest  heads  in  a  profession  which  never  ad 
mits  a  fool.  The  rights  of  property  nothing  but 
felony  and  treason  can  override.  The  house  is  a 
castle  which  the  king  cannot  enter.  The  Bank  is 
a  strong  box  to  which  the  king  has  ro  key.  What 
ever  surly  sweetness  possession  can  give,  is  tasted 
in  England  to  the  dregs.  Vested  rights  are  awful 
things,  and  absolute  possession  gives  the  smallest 
freeholder  identity  of  interest  with  the  duke. 
High  stone  fences,  and  padlocked  garden-gates  an- ' 
nounce  the  absolute  will  of  the  owner  to  be  alone. 
Every  whim  of  exaggerated  egotism  is  put  into 
stone  and  iron,  into  silver  and  gold,  with  costly 
deliberation  and  detail. 

An  Englishman  hears  that  the  Queen  Dowager 
wishes  to  establish  some  claim  to  put  her  park 
paling  a  rod  forward  into  his  grounds,  so  as  to  get 
a  coachway,  and  save  her  a  mile  to  the  avenue. 
Instantly  he  transforms  his  paling  into  stone-ma 
sonry,  solid  as  the  walls  of  Cuma,  and  all  Europe 
cannot  prevail  on  him  to  sell  or  compound  for  an 
inch  of  the  land.  They  delight  in  a  freak  as  the 
proof  of  their  sovereign  freedom.  Sir  Edward 


168  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Boynton,  at  Spic  Park,  at  Cadenham,  on  a  preci 
pice  of  incomparable  prospect,  built  a  house  like  a 
long  barn,  which  had  not  a  window  on  the  prospect 
side.  Strawberry  Hill  of  Horace  Walpole,  Font- 
hill  Abbey  of  Mr.  Beckford,  were  freaks ;  and 
Newstead  Abbey  became  one  in  the  hands  of  Lord 
Byron. 

But  the  proudest  result  of  this  creation  has  been 
the  great  and  refined  forces  it  has  put  at  the  dis 
posal  of  the  private  citizen.  In  the  social  world,  an 
Englishman  to-day  has  the  best  lot.  He  is  a  king 
in  a  plain  coat.  He  goes  with  the  most  powerful 
protection,  keeps  the  best  company,  is  armed  by 
the  best  education,  is  seconded  by  wealth ;  and  his 
English  name  and  accidents  are  like  a  flourish 
of  trumpets  announcing  him.  This,  with  his  quiet 
style  of  manners,  gives  him  the  power  of  a  sov 
ereign,  without  the  inconveniences  which  belong 
to  that  rank.  I  much  prefer  the  condition  of  an 
English  gentleman  of  the  better  class,  to  that  of 
any  potentate  in  Europe,  —  whether  for  travel,  or 
for  opportunity  of  society,  or  for  access  to  means 
of  science  or  study,  or  for  mere  comfort  and  easy 
healthy  relation  to  people  at  home. 

Such  as  we  have  seen  is  the  wealth  of  England, 
a  mighty  mass,  and  made  good  in  whatever  details 
we  care  to  explore.  The  cause  and  spring  of  it  is 


WEALTH.  1<>!) 

the  wealth  of  temperament  in  the  people.  The 
wonder  of  Britain  is  this  plenteous  nature.  Her 
worthies  are  ever  surrounded  by  as  good  men  as 
themselves ;  each  is  a  captain  a  hundred  strong, 
and  that  wealth  of  men  is  represented  again  in  the 
faculty  of  each  individual,  —  that  he  has  waste 
strength,  power  to  spare.  The  English  are  so  rich, 
and  seem  to  have  established  a  tap-root  in  the  bow 
els  of  the  planet,  because  they  are  constitutionally 
fertile  and  creative. 

But  a  man  must  keep  an  eye  on  his  servants, 
if  he  would  not  have  them  rule  him.  Man  is  a 
shrewd  inventor,  and  is  ever  taking  the  hint  of  a 
new  machine  from  his  own  structure,  adapting  some 
secret  of  his  own  anatomy  in  iron,  wood,  and 
leather,  to  some  required  function  in  the  work  of 
the  world.  But  it  is  found  that  the  machine  un 
mans  the  user.  What  he  gains  in  making  cloth, 
he  loses  in  general  power.  There  should  be  tem 
perance  in  making  cloth,  as  well  as  in  eating.  A 
man  should  not  be  a  silk- worm ;  nor  a  nation  a 
tent  of  caterpillars.  The  robust  rural  Saxon  de 
generates  in  the  mills  to  the  Leicester  stockinger, 
to  the  imbecile  Manchester  spinner,  —  far  on  the 
way  to  be  spiders  and  needles.  The  incessant  rep 
etition  of  the  same  hand-work  dwarfs  the  man, 
robs  him  of  his  strength,  wit,  and  versatility,  to 
15 


170  ENT.r.rsii  TRAITS, 

*make  a  pin-poli slier,  a  buckle-maker,  or  any  other 
specialty  ;  and  presently,  in  a  change  of  industry, 
whole  towns  are  sacrificed  like  ant-hills,  when  the 
fashion  of  shoe-strings  supersedes  buckles,  when 
;  <>tton  takes  the  place  of  linen,  or  railways  of  turn 
i'ikes,  or  when  commons  are  inclosed  by  landlords, 

/Then  society  is  admonished  of  the  mischief  of  the 
division  of  labor,  and  that  the  best  political  econo 
my  is  care  and  culture  of  men  ;  for,  in  these  crises, 
all  are  ruined  except  such  as  are  proper  individuals, 
capable  of  thought,  and  of  new  choice  and  the  ap 
plication  of  their  talent  to  new  labor.  Then  again 
come  in  new  calamities.  England  is  aghast  at  the 
disclosure  of  her  fraud  in  the  adulteration  of  food, 
of  drugs,  and  of  almost  every  fabric  in  her  mills 
and  shops ;  finding  that  milk  will  not  nourish,  nor 
sugar  sweeten,  nor  bread  satisfy,  nor  pepper  bite  the 
tongue,  nor  glue  stick.  In  true  England  all  is 
false  and  forged.  This  too  is  the  reaction  of  ma 
chinery,  but  of  the  larger  machinery  of  commerce. 
'Tis  not,  I  suppose,  want  of  probity,  so  much  as 
the  tyranny  of  trade,  which  necessitates  a  perpet 
ual  competition  of  underselling,  and  that  again  a 
perpetual  deterioration  of  the  fabric. 

The  machinery  has  proved,  like  the  balloon,  un 
manageable,  and  flies  away  with  the  aeronaut. 
Steam,  from  the  first,  hissed  and  screamed  to  warn 


WEALTH.  171 

/ 

him ;  it  was  dreadful  with  its  explosion,  and  crushed 
the  engineer.  The  machinist  has  wrought  and 
watched,  engineers  and  firemen  without  number 
have  been  sacrificed  in  learning  to  tame  and  guide 
the  monster.  But  harder  still  it  has  proved  to 
resist  and  rule  the  dragon  Money,  with  his  paper 
wings.  Chancellors  and  Boards  of  Trade,  Pitt,  Peel, 
and  Robinson,  and  their  Parliaments,  and  their 
whole  generation,  adopted  false  principles,  and  went 
to  their  graves  in  the  belief  that  they  were  enriching 
the  country  which  they  were  impoverishing.  They 
congratulated  each  other  on  ruinous  expedients. 
It  is  rare  to  find  a  merchant  who  knows  why  a 
crisis  occurs  in  trade,  why  prices  rise  or  fall,  or 
who  knows  the  mischief  of  paper  money.  In  the 
culmination  of  national  prosperity,  in  the  annexa 
tion  of  countries  ;  building  of  ships,  depots,  towns  ; 
in  the  influx  of  tons  of  gold  and  silver ;  amid  the 
chuckle  of  chancellors  and  financiers,  it  was  found 
that  bread  rose  to  famine  prices,  that  the  yeoman 
was  forced  to  sell  his  cow  and  pig,  his  tools,  and 
his  acre  of  land ;  and  the  dreadful  barometer  of 
the  poor-rates  was  touching  the  point  of  ruin. 
The  poor-rate  was  sucking  in  the  solvent  classes,, 
and  forcing  an  exodus  of  farmers  and  mechanics. 
What  befals  from  the  violence  of  financial  crises, 
befals  daily  in  the  violence  of  artificial  legislation. 


172  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 


Such  a  wealth  has  England  earned,  ever  new, 
bounteous,  and  augmenting.  But  the  question  re 
curs,  does  she  take  the  step  beyond,  namely,  to  the 
wise  use,  in  view  of  the  supreme  wealth  of  na 
tions  ?  We  estimate  the  wisdom  of  nations  by 
seeing  what  they  did  with  their  surplus  capital. 
And,  in  view  of  these  injuries,  some  compensation 
has  been  attempted  in  England.  A  part  of  the 
money  earned  returns  to  the  brain  to  buy  schools, 
libraries,  bishops,  astronomers,  chemists,  and  artists 
with ;  and  a  part  to  repair  the  wrongs  of  this  in 
temperate  weaving,  by  hospitals,  savings-banks, 
Mechanics'  Institutes,  public  grounds,  and  other 
charities  and  amenities.  But  the  antidotes  are 
frightfully  inadequate,  and  the  evil  requires  a 
deeper  cure,  which  time  and  a  simpler  social  organ 
ization  must  supply.  At  present,  she  does  not  rule 
her  wealth.  She  is  simply  a  good  England,  but  no 
divinity,  or  wise  and  instructed  soul.  She  too  is 
in  the  stream  of  fate,  one  victim  more  in  a  common 
catastrophe. 

But  being  in  the  fault,  she  has  the  misfortune 
of  greatness  to  be  held  as  the  chief  offender.  Eng 
land  must  be  held  responsible  for  the  despotism  of 
expense.  Her  prosperity,  the  splendor  which  so 


WEALTH.  173 

much  manhood  and  talent  and  perseverance  has 
thrown  upon  vulgar  aims,  is  the  very  argument  of 
materialism.  Her  success  strengthens  the  hands 
of  base  wealth.  Who  can  propose  to  youth  pov 
erty  and  wisdom,  when  mean  gain  has  arrived  at 
the  conquest  of  letters  and  arts  ;  when  English 
success  has  grown  out  of  the  very  renunciation  of 
principles,  and  the  dedication  to  outsides  ?  A 
civility  of  trifles,  of  money  and  expense,  an  eru 
dition  of  sensation  takes  place,  and  the  putting  as 
many  impediments  as  we  can,  between  the  man 
and  his  objects.  Hardly  the  bravest  among  them 
have  the  manliness  to  resist  it  successfully.  Hence, 
it  has  come,  that  not  the  aims  of  a  manly  life,  but 
the  means  of  meeting  a  certain  ponderous  expense, 
is  that  which  is  to  be  considered  by  a  youth  in 
England,  emerging  from  his  minority.  A  large 
family  is  reckoned  a  misfortune.  And  it  is  a  con 
solation  in  the  death  of  the  young,  that  a  source 
of  expense  is  closed. 
15*  ' 


CHAPTER    XI. 

ARISTOCRACY. 

THE  feudal  character  of  the  English  state,  now 
that  it  is  getting  obsolete,  glares  a  little,  in  con 
trast  with  the  democratic  tendencies.  The  inequal 
ity  of  power  and  property  shocks  republican  nerves. 
Palaces,  halls,  villas,  walled  parks,  all  over  Eng 
land,  rival  the  splendor  of  royal  seats.  Many  of 
the  halls,  like  liaddon,  or  Kedleston,  are  beautiful 
desolations.  The  proprietor  never  saw  them,  or 
never  lived  in  them.  Primogeniture  built  these 
sumptuous  piles,  and,  I  suppose,  it  is  the  senti 
ment  of  every  traveller,  as  it  was  mine,  'Twas 
well  to  come  ere  these  were  gone.  Primogeniture 
is  a  cardinal  rule  of  English  property  and  institu 
tions.  Laws,  customs,  manners,  the  very  persons 
and  faces,  affirm  it. 

The  frame  of  society  is  aristocratic,  the  taste 
of  the  people  is  loyal.  The  estates,  names, 
and  manners  of  the  nobles  flatter  the  fancy  of 

the  people,  and  conciliate  the  necessary  support 

(174) 


ARISTOCRACY.  175 

In  spite  of  broken  faith,  stolen  charters,  and 
the  devastation  of  society  by  the  profligacy  of  the 
court,  we  take  sides  as  we  read  for  the  loyal  Eng-- 
land  and  King  Charles's  "  return  to  his  right "  with 
his  Cavaliers,  —  knowing  what  a  heartless  trifler 
he  is,  and  what  a  crew  of  God-forsaken  robbers 
they  are.  The  people  of  England  knew  as  much. 
But  the  fair  idea  of  a  settled  government  connect 
ing  itself  with  heraldic  names,  with  the  written 
and  oral  history  of  Europe,  and,  at  last,  with  the 
Hebrew  religion,  and  the  oldest  traditions  of  the 
world,  was  too  pleasing  a  vision  to  be  shattered  by 
a  few  offensive  realities,  and  the  politics  of  shoe 
makers  and  coistennongers.  The  hopes  of  the 
commoners  take  the  same  direction  with  the  inter 
est  of  the  patricians.  Every  man  who  becomes 
rich  buys  land,  and  does  what  he  can  to  fortify  the 
nobility,  into  which  he  hopes  to  rise.  The  Angli 
can  clergy  are  identified  with  the  aristocracy. 
Time  and  law  have  made  the  joining  and  mould 
ing  perfect  in  every  part.  The  Cathedrals,  the 
Universities,  the  national  music,  the  popular  ro 
mances,  conspire  to  uphold  the  heraldry,  which 
the  current  politics  of  the  day  are  sapping.  The 
taste  of  the  people  is  conservative.  They  are 
proud  of  the  castles,  and  of  the  language  and  sym 
bol  of  chivalry.  Even  the  word  lord  is  the  luck- 


176  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

iest  style  that  is  used  in  any  language  to  designate 
a  patrician.  The  superior  education  and  manners 
of  the  nobles  recommend  them  to  the  country. 

The  Norwegian  pirate  got  what  he  could,  and 
held  it  for  his  eldest  son.  The  Norman  noble, 
who  was  the  Norwegian  pirate  baptized,  did  like 
wise.  There  was  this  advantage  of  western  over 
oriental  nobility,  that  this  was  recruited  from  be 
low.  English  history  is  aristocracy  with  the  doors 
open.  Who  has  courage  and  faculty,  let  him  come 
in.  Of  course,  the  terms  of  admission  to  this  club 
are  hard  and  high.  The  selfishness  of  the  nobles 
comes  in  aid  of  the  interest  of  the  nation  to  re 
quire  signal  merit.  Piracy  and  war  gave  place  to 
trade,  politics,  and  letters  ;  the  war-lord  to  the  law- 
lord  ;  the  law -lord  to  the  merchant  and  the  mill- 
owner  ;  but  the  privilege  was  kept,  whilst  the 
means  of  obtaining  it  were  changed. 

The  foundations  of  these  families  lie  deep  in 
Norwegian  exploits  by  sea,  and  Saxon  sturdiness 
on  land.  All  nobility  in  its  beginnings  was  some 
body's  natural  superiority.  The  things  these 
English  have  done  were  not  done  without  peril  of 
life,  nor  without  wisdom  and  conduct ;  and  the 
first  hands,  it  may  be  presumed,  were  often  chal 
lenged  to  show  their  right  to  their  honors,  or  yield 
them  to  better  men.  te  He  that  will  be  a  head,, 


ARISTOCRACY.  177 

let  him  be  a  bridge,"  said  the  Welsh  chief  Bene- 
gridran,  when  he  carried  all  his  men  over  the 
river  on  his  back.  "  He  shall  have  the  book," 
said  the  mother  of  Alfred,  "  who  can  read  it ;  " 
and  Alfred  won  it  by  that  title  :  and  I  make  no 
doubt  that  feudal  tenure  was  no  sinecure,  but 
baron,  knight,  and  tenant,  often  had  their  memo 
ries  refreshed,  in  regard  to  the  service  by  which 
they  held  their  lands.  The  De  Veres,  Bohuns, 
Mowbrays,  and  Plantagenets  were  not  addicted  to 
contemplation.  The  middle  age  adorned  itself 
with  proofs  of  manhood  and  devotion.  Of  Rich 
ard  Beauchamp,  Earl  of  Warwick,  the  Emperor 
told  Henry  V.  that  no  Christian  king  had  such 
another  knight  for  wisdom,  nurture,  and  manhood, 
and  caused  him  to  be  named,  "  Father  "of  curtesie." 
"  Our  success  in  France,"  says  the  historian,  "  lived 
and  died  with  him."  * 

The  war-lord  earned  his  honors,  and  no  donation 
of  land  was  large,  as  long  as  it  brought  the  duty 
of  protecting  it,  hour  by  hour,  against  a  terrible 
enemy.  In  France  and  in  England,  the  nobles 
were,  down  to  a  late  day,  born  and  bred  to  war  : 
and  the  duel,  which  in  peace  still  held  them  to  the 
risks  of  war,  diminished  the  envy  that,  in  trading 

*  Fuller's  WortMes.    II.  p.  472. 


178  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

and  studious  nations,  would  else  have  pried  into 
their  title.  They  were  looked  on  as  men  who 
played  high  for  a  great  stake. 

Great  estates  are  not  sinecures,  if  they  are  to  be 
kept  great.  A  creative  economy  is  the  fuel  of 
magnificence.  In  the  same  line  of  Warwick,  the 
successor  next  but  one  to  Beauchamp,  was  the 
stout  earl  of  Henry  VI.  and  Edward  IV.  Few 
esteemed  themselves  in  the  mode,  whose  heads 
were  not  adorned  with  the  black  ragged  staff,  his 
badge.  At  his  house  in  London,  six  oxen  were 
dajly  eaten  at  a  breakfast ;  and  every  tavern  was 
full  of  his  meat  ;  and  who  had  any  acquaintance 
in  his  family,  should  have  as  much  boiled  and 
roast  as  he  could  carry  on  a  long  dagger. 

The  new  age  brings  new  qualities  into  request, 
the  virtues  of  pirates  gave  way  to  those  of  plant 
ers,  merchants,  senators,  and  scholars.  Comity, 
social  talent,  and  fine  manners,  no  doubt,  have  had 
their  part  also.  I  have  met  somewhere  with  a  his- 
toriette,  which,  whether  more  or  less  true  in  its 
particulars,  carries  a  general  truth.  "  How  came 
the  Duke  of  Bedford  by  his  great  landed  estates  ? 
His  ancestor  having  travelled  on  the  continent,  a 
lively,  pleasant  man,  became  the  companion  of  a 
foreign  prince  wrecked  on  the  Dorsetshire  coast, 
where  Mr.  Russell  lived.  The  prince  recommend- 


ARISTOCRACY.  179 

ed  him  to  Henry  VIII.,  who,  liking  his  company, 
gave  him  a  large  share  of  the  plundered  church 
lands." 

The  pretence  is  that  the  noble  is  of  unbroken, 
descent  from  the  Norman,  and  has  never  worked 
for  eight  hundred  years.  But  the  fact  is  otherwise. 
Where  is  Bohun  ?  where  is  De  Vere  ?  The  law 
yer,  the  farmer,  the  silkmercer  lies  perdu  under 
the  coronet,  and  winks  to  the  antiquary  to  say 
nothing  ;  especially  skilful  lawyers,  nobody's  sons, 
who  did  some  piece  of  work  at  a  nice  moment  for 
government,  and  were  rewarded  with  ermine. 

The  national  tastes  of  the  English  do  not  lead 
them  to  the  life  of  the  courtier,  but  to  secure  the 
comfort  and  independence  of  their  homes.  The 
aristocracy  are  marked  by  their  predilection  for 
country-life.  They  are  called  the  county-families. / 
They  have  often  no  residence  in  London,  and  only 
go  thither  a  short  time,  during  the  season,  to  see 
the  opera  ;  but  they  concentrate  the  love  and  labor 
of  many  generations  on  the  building,  planting  and 
decoration  of  their  homesteads.  Some  of  them 
are  too  old  and  too  proud  to  wear  titles,  or,  as 
Sheridan  said  of  Coke,  "  disdain  to  hide  their  head 
in  a  coronet ; "  and  some  curious  examples  are 
cited  to  show  the  stability  of  English  families. 
Their  proverb  is,  that,  fifty  miles  from  London,  a 


180  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

family  will  last  a  hundred  years  ;  at  a  hundred 
miles,  two  hundred  years  ;  and  so  on ;  but  I  doubt 
that  steam,  the  enemy  of  time,  as  well  as  of  space, 
will  disturb  these  ancient  rules.  Sir  Henry  "Wot- 
ton  says  of  the  first  Duke  of  Buckingham,  "  He 
was  born  at  Brookeby  in  Leicestershire,  where 
his  ancestors  had  chiefly  continued  about  the  space 
of  four  hundred  years,  rather  without  obscurity, 
than  with  any  great  lustre."  *  Wraxall  says,  that, 
in  1781,  Lord  Surrey,  afterwards  Duke  of  Nor 
folk,  told  him,  that  when  the  year  1783  should 
arrive,  he  meant  to  give  a  grand  festival  to  all  the 
descendants  of  the  body  of  Jockey  of  Norfolk,  to 
mark  the  day  when  the  dukedom  should  have  re 
mained  three  hundred  years  in  their  house,  since  its 
creation  by  Richard  III.  Pepys  tells  us,  in  writing 
of  an  Earl  Oxford,  in  1666,  that  the  honor  had  now 
remained  in  that  name  and  blood  six  hundred  years. 

This  long  descent  of  families  and  this  cleaving 
through  ages  to  the  same  spot  of  ground  captivates 
the  imagination.  It  has  too  a  connection  with  the 
names  of  the  towns  and  districts  of  the  country. 

The  names  are  excellent,  —  an  atmosphere  of 
legendary  melody  spread  over  the  land.  Older 
than  all  epics  and  histories,  which  clothe  a  nation, 

*  Reliquiae  Wottonianae,  p.  208, 


ARISTOCRACY.  181 

this  undershirt  sits  close  to  the  body.  What  his 
tory  too,  and  what  stores  of  primitive  and  savage 
observation  it  infolds  !  Cambridge  is  the  bridge 
of  the  Cam  ;  Sheffield  the  field  of  the  river  Sheaf ; 
Leicester  the  castra  or  camp  of  the  Lear  or  Leir 
(now  Soar)  ;  Rochdale,  of  ihe  Roch  ;  Exeter  or 
Excester,  the  castra  of  the  Ex  ;  Exmouth,  Dart 
mouth,  Sidmouth,  Teignmouth,  the  mouths  of  the 
Ex,  Dart,  Sid,  and  Teign  rivers.  Waltham  is 
strong  town  ;  Radcliffe  is  red  cliff ;  and  so  on  :  — • 
a  sincerity  and  use  in  naming  very  striking  to 
an  American,  whose  country  is  whitewashed  all 
over  by  unmeaning  names,  the  cast-off  clothes  of 
the  country  from  which  its  emigrants  came  ;  or, 
named  at  a  pinch  from  a  psalm-tune.  But  the 
English  are  those  "  barbarians  "  of  Jamblichus, 
who  "  are  stable  in  their  manners,  and  firmly  con 
tinue  to  employ  the  same  words,  which  also  are 
dear  to  the  gods." 

'Tis  an  old  sneer,  that  the  Irish  peerage  drew 
their  names  from  playbooks.  The  English  lords 
do  not  call  their  lands  after  their  own  names,  but 
call  themselves  after  their  lands  ;  as  if  the  man 
represented  the  country  that  bred  him  ;  and  they 
rightly  wear  the  token  of  the  glebe  that  gave  them 
birth  ;  suggesting  that  the  tie  is  not  cut,  but  that 
there  in  London,  —  the  crags  of  Argyle,  the  kail 
16 


182  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

of  Cornwall,  the  downs  of  Devon,  the  iron  of 
Wales,  the  clays  of  Stafford,  are  neither  forgetting 
nor  forgotten,  but  know  the  man  who  was  born 
by  them,  and  who,  like  the  long  line  of  his  la 
thers,  has  carried  that  crag,  that  shore,  dsle, 
fen,  or  woodland,  in  his  blood  and  manners.  It 
has,  too,  the  advantage  of  suggesting  responsi- 
bleness.  A  susceptible  man  could  not  wear  a 
name  which  represented  in  a  strict  sense  a  city  or 
a  county  of  England,  without  hearing  in  it  a  chal 
lenge  to  duty  and  honor. 

The  predilection  of  the  patricians  for  residence 
iii  the  country,  combined  with  the  degree  of  lib 
erty  possessed  by  the  peasant,  makes  the  safety  of 
the  English  hall.  Mirabeau  wrote  prophetically 
from  England,  in  1784,  "  If  revolution  break  out 
in  France,  I  tremble  for  the  aristocracy  :  their 
chateaux  will  be  reduced  to  ashes,  and  their  blood 
spilt  in  torrents.  The  English  tenant  would  de 
fend  his  lord  to  the  last  extremity."  The  English 
go  to  their  estates  for  grandeur.  The  French  live 
at  court,  and  exile  themselves  to  their  estates  for 
economy.  As  they  do  not  mean  to  live  with  their 
tenants,  they  do  not  conciliate  them,  but  wring 
from  them  the  last  sous.  Evelyn  writes  from 
Blois,  in  1644,  "  The  wolves  are  here  in  such 
numbers,  that  they  often  come  and  take  children 


ARISTOCRACY.  183 

out  of  the  streets  :  yet  will  not  the  Duke,  who  is 
sovereign  here,  permit  them  to  be  destroyed." 

In  evidence  of  the  wealth  amassed  by  ancient 
families,  the  traveller  is  shown  the  palaces  in  Pic 
cadilly,  Burlington  House,  Devonshire  House,  Lans- 
downe  House  in  Berkshire  Square,  and,  lower 
down  in  the  city,  a  few  noble  houses  which  still 
withstand  in  all  their  amplitude  the  encroachment 
of  streets.  The  Duke  of  Bedford  includes  or  in 
cluded  a  mile  square  in  the  heart  of  London, 
where  the  British  Museum,  once  Montague  House, 
now  stands,  and  the  land  occupied  by  Woburu 
Square,  Bedford  Square,  Hussell  Square.  The 
Marquis  of  Westminster  built  within  a  few  years 
the  series  of  squares  called  Belgravia.  Stafford 
House  is  the  noblest  palace  in  London.  North 
umberland  House  holds  its  place  by  Charing  Cross. 
Chesterfield  House  remains  in  Audley  Street. 
Sion  House  and  Holland  House  are  in  the  suburbs. 
But  most  of  the  historical  houses  are  masked  or 
lost  in  the  modern  uses  to  which  trade  or  charity 
has  converted  them.  A  multitude  of  town  pal 
aces  contain  inestimable  galleries  of  art. 

In  the  country,  the  size  of  private  estates  is 
more  impressive.  From  Barnard  Castle  I  rode 
on  the  highway  twenty-three  miles  from  High 
Force,  a  fall  of  the  Tees,  towards  Darlington,  past 


184  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Raby  Castle,  through  the  estate  of  the  Duke  of 
Cleveland.  The  Marquis  of  Breadalbane  rides  out 
of  his  house  a  hundred  miles  in  a  straight  line  to 
the  sea,  on  his  own  property.  The  Duke  of 
Sutherland  owns  the  county  of  Sutherland,  stretch 
ing  across  Scotland  from  sea  to  sea.  The  Duke 
of  Devonshire,  besides  his  other  estates,  owns 
96,000  acres  in  the  County  of  Derby.  The 
Duke  of  Richmond  has  40,000  acres  at  Good 
wood,  and  300,000  at  Gordon  Castle.  The 
Duke  of  Norfolk's  park  in  Sussex  is  fifteen  miles 
in  circuit.  An  agriculturist  bought  lately  the 
island  of  Lewes,  in  Hebrides,  containing  500,000 
acres.  The  possessions  of  the  Earl  of  Lonsdale 
gave  him  eight  seats  in  Parliament.  This  is  the 
Heptarchy  again  :  and  before  the  Reform  of  1832, 
one  hundred  and  fifty-four  persons  sent  three  hun 
dred  and  seven  members  to  Parliament.  The 
borough-mongers  governed  England. 

These  large  domains  are  growing  larger.  The 
great  estates  are  absorbing  the  small  freeholds. 
In  1786,  the  soil  of  England  was  owned  by 
£50,000  corporations  and  proprietors ;  and,  in 
1822,  by  32,000.  These  broad  estates  find  room 
in  this  narrow  island.  All  over  England,  scattered 
at  short  intervals  among  ship-yards,  mills,  mines, 
and  forges,  are  the  paradises  of  the  nobles,  where 


ARISTOCRACY.  185 

the  livelong  repose  and  refinement  are  heightened 
by  the  contrast  with  the  roar  of  industry  and 
necessity,  out  of  which  you  have  stepped  aside. 


I  was  surprised  to  observe  the  very  small  at 
tendance  usually  in  the  House  of  Lords.  Out 
of  573  peers,  on  ordinary  days,  only  twenty  or 
thirty.  Where  are  they  ?  I  asked.  "  At  home 
on  their  estates,  devoured  by  ennui,  or  in  the 
Alps,  or  up  the  Rhine,  in  the  Harz  Mountains, 
or  in  Egypt,  or  in  India,  on  the  Ghauts."  But, 
with  such  interests  at  stake,  how  can  these  men 
afford  to  neglect  them  ?  "  O,"  replied  my  friend, 
"  why  should  they  work  for  themselves,  when 
every  man  in  England  works  for  them,  and  will 
suffer  before  they  come  to  harm  ?  "  The  hardest 
radical  instantly  uncovers,  and  changes  his  tone  to 
a  lord.  It  was  remarked,  on  the  10th  April,  18-18, 
(the  day  of  the  Chartist  demonstration,)  that  the 
upper  classes  were,  for  the  first  time,  actively  inter 
esting  themselves  in  their  own  defence,  and  men 
of  rank  were  sworn  special  constables,  with  the  rest. 
"  Besides,  why  need  they  sit  out  the  debate  ?  Has 
not  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  at  this  moment,  their 
proxies,  —  the  proxies  of  fifty  peers  in  his  pocket, 
to  vote  for  them,  if  there  be  un  emergency  ?" 
16  * 


186  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

It  is  however  true,  that  the  existence  of  the 
House  of  Peers  as  a  branch  of  the  government 
entitles  them  to  fill  half  the  Cabinet  ;  and  their 
weight  of  property  and  station  give  them  a  virtual 
nomination  of  the  other  half;  whilst  they  have 
their  share  in  the  subordinate  offices,  as  a  school 
of  training.  This  monopoly  of  political  power  has 
given  them  their  intellectual  and  social  eminence 
in  Europe.  A  few  law  lords  and  a  few  political 
lords  take  the  brunt  of  public  business.  In  the 
army,  the  nobility  fill  a  large  part  of  the  high 
commissions,  and  give  to  these  a  tone  of  expense 
and  splendor,  and  also  of  exclusiveness.  They 
have  borne  their  full  share  of  duty  and  danger  in 
this  service ;  and  there  are  few  noble  families 
which  have  not  paid  in  some  of  their  members, 
the  debt  of  life  or  limb,  in  the  sacrifices  of  the 
Russian  war.  For  the  rest,  the  nobility  have  the 
lead  in  matters  of  state,  and  of  expense  ;  in  ques 
tions  of  taste,  in  social  usages,  in  convivial  and 
domestic  hospitalities.  In  general,  all  that  is  re 
quired  of  them  is  to  sit  securely,  to  preside  at 
public  meetings,  to  countenance  charities,  and  to 
give  the  example  of  that  decorum  so  dear  to  the 
British  heart.  . 

If  one  asks,  in  the  critical  spirit  of  the  day, 
what  service  this  class  have  rendered  ?  —  uses  ap- 


ARISTOCRACY.  187 

pear,  or  they  would  have  perished  long  ago. 
Some  of  these  are  easily  enumerated,  others  more 
subtle  make  a  part  of  unconscious  history.  Their 
institution  is  one  step  in  the  progress  of  society. 
For  a  race  yields  a  nobility  in  some  form,  how 
ever  we  name  the  lords,  as  surely  as  it  yields 
women. 

The  English  nobles  are  high-spirited,  active, 
educated  men,  born  to  wealth  and  power,  who 
have  run  through  every  country,  and  kept  in 
every  country  the  best  company,  have  seen  every 
secret  of  art  and  nature,  and,  when  men  of  any 
ability  or  ambition,  have  been  consulted  in  the 
conduct  of  every  important  action.  You  cannot 
wield  great  agencies  without  lending  yourself  to 
them,  and,  when  it  happens  that  the  spirit  of  the 
earl  meets  his  rank  and  duties,  we  have  the  best 
examples  of  behavior.  Power  of  any  kind  readily 
appears  in  the  manners  ;  and  beneficent  power,  h 
talent  de  bien  faire,  gives  a  majesty  which  cannot 
be  concealed  or  resisted. 

These  people  seem  to  gain  as  much  as  they  lose 
by  their  position.  They  survey  society,  as  from 
the  top  of  St.  Paul's,  and,  if  they  never  hear  plain 
truth  from  men,  they  see  the  best  of  every  thing, 
in  every  kind,  and  they  see  things  so  grouped  and 
amassed  as  to  infer  easily  the  sum  and  genius, 


188  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

instead  of  tedious  particularities.  Their  good  be 
havior  deserves  all  its  fame,  and  they  have  that 
simplicity,  and  that  air  of  repose,  which  are  the 
finest  ornament  of  greatness. 

The  upper  classes  have  only  birth,  say  the  peo 
ple  here,  and  not  thoughts.  Yes,  but  they  have 
manners,  and,  'tis  wonderful,  how  much  talent 
runs  into  manners :  —  nowhere  and  never  so  much 
as  in  England.  They  have  the  sense  of  superior 
ity,  the  absence  of  all  the  ambitious  effort  which 
disgusts  in  the  aspiring  classes,  a  pure  tone  of 
thought  and  feeling,  and  the  power  to  command, 
among  their  other  luxuries,  the  presence  of  the 
most  accomplished  men  in  their  festive  meetings. 

Loyalty  is  in  the  English  a  sub-religion.  They 
wear  the  laws  as  ornaments,  and  walk  by  their 
faith  in  their  painted  May-Fair,  as  if  among  the 
forms  of  gods.  The  economist  of  1855  who  asks, 
of  what  use  are  the  lords  ?  may  learn  of  Franklin 
to  ask,  of  what  use  is  a  baby  ?  They  have  been  a 
social  church  proper  to  inspire  sentiments  mutually 
honoring  the  lover  and  the  loved.  Politeness  is 
the  ritual  of  society,  as  prayers  are  of  the  church; 
a  school  of  manners,  and  a  gentle  blessing  to  the 
age  in  which  it  grew.  'Tis  a  romance  adorning 
English  life  with  a  larger  horizon ;  a  midway 
heaven,  fulfilling  to  their  sense  their  fairy  tales 


ARISTOCRACY.  189 

and  poetry.  This,  just  as  far  as  the  breeding  of 
the  nobleman  really  made  him  brave,  handsome, 
accomplished,  and  great-hearted. 

On  general  grounds,  whatever  tends  to  form 
manners,  or  to  finish  men,  has  a  great  value. 
Every  one  who  has  tasted  the  delight  of  friend 
ship,  will  respect  every  social  guard  which  our 
manners  can  establish,  tending  to  secure  from  the 
intrusion  of  frivolous  and  distasteful  people.  The 
jealousy  of  every  class  to  guard  itself,  is  a  testi 
mony  to  the  reality  they  have  found  in  life.  When 
a  man  once  knows  that  he  has  done  justice  to  him 
self,  let  him  dismiss  all  terrors  of  aristocracy  as 
superstitions,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned.  He  who 
keeps  the  door  of  a  mine,  whether  of  cobalt,  or 
mercury,  or  nickel,  or  plumbago,  securely  knows 
that  the  world  cannot  do  without  him.  Every 
body  who  is  real  is  open  and  ready  for  that  which 
is  also  real. 

Besides,  these  are  they  who  make  England  that 
strongbox  and  museum  it  is  ;  who  gather  and 
protect  works  of  art,  dragged  from  amidst  burning 
cities  and  revolutionary  countries,  and  brought 
hither  out  of  all  the  world.  I  look  with  respect 
at  houses  six,  seven,  eight  hundred,  or,  like  War 
wick  Castle,  nine  hundred  years  old.  I  pardoned 
high  park-fences,  when  I  saw,  that,  besides  does 


190  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

and  pheasants,  these  have  preserved  Arundel 
marbles,  Townley  galleries,  Howard  and  Spenserian 
libraries,  Warwick  and  Portland  vases,  Saxon  manu 
scripts,  monastic  architectures,  millennial  trees,  and 
breeds  of  cattle  elsewhere  extinct.  In  these  manors, 
after  the  frenzy  of  war  and  destruction  subsides  a 
little,  the  antiquary  finds  the  frailest  Roman  jar,  or 
crumbling  Egyptian  mummy-case,  without  so  much 
as  a  new  layer  of  dust,  keeping  the  series  of  history 
unbroken,  and  waiting  for  its  interpreter,  who  is 
sure  to  arrive.  These  lords  are  the  treasurers  and 
librarians  of  mankind,  engaged  by  their  pride  and 
wealth  to  this  function. 

Yet  there  were  other  works  for  British  dukes 
to  do.  George  Loudon,  Quintinye,  Evelyn,  had 
taught  them  to  make  gardens.  Arthur  Young, 
Bakewell,  and  Mechi,  have  made  them  agricultural. 
Scotland  was  a  camp  until  the  day  of  Culloden. 
The  Dukes  of  Athol,  Sutherland,  Buccleugh,  and 
the  Marquis  of  Breadalbane  have  introduced  the 
rape-culture,  the  sheep-farm,  wheat,  drainage,  the 
plantation  of  forests,  the  artificial  replenishment  of 
lakes  and  ponds  with  fish,  the  renting  of  game-pre 
serves  Against  the  cry  of  the  old  tenantry,  and  the 
sympathetic  cry  of  the  English  press,  they  have 
rooted  out  and  planted  anew,  and  now  six  millions 
of  people  live,  and  live  better  on  the  same  land 
that  fed  three  millions. 


ARISTOCRACY.  191 

The  English  barons,  in  every  period,  have  been 
brave  and  great,  after  the  estimate  and  opinion  of 
their  times.  The  grand  old  halls  scattered  up  and 
down  in  England,  are  dumb  vouchers  to  the  state 
and  broad  hospitality  of  their  ancient  lords.  Shak- 
speare's  portraits  of  good  duke  Humphrey,  of  War 
wick,  of  Northumberland,  of  Talbot,  were  drawn 
in  strict  consonance  with  the  traditions.  A  sketch 
of  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  from  the  pen  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  archbishop  Parker  ;  *  Lord  Her 
bert  of  Cher  bury  *s  autobiography  ;  the  letters  and 
essays  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney ;  the  anecdotes  pre 
served  by  the  antiquaries  Fuller  and  Collins  ;  some 
glimpses  at  the  interiors  of  noble  houses,  which 
we  owe  to  Pepys  and  Evelyn ;  the  details  which 
Ben  Jonson's  masques  (performed  at  Keiiilworth, 
Althorpe,  Belvoir,  and  other  noble  houses,)  record 
or  suggest ;  down  to  Aubrey's  passages  of  the  life 
of  -Hobbes  in  the  house  of  the  Earl  of  Devon,  are 
favorable  pictures  of  a  romantic  style  of  manners. 
Penshurst  still  shines  for  us,  and  its  Christmas 
revels,  "  where  logs  not  burn,  but  men."  At 
Wilton  House,  the  "  Arcadia  "  was  written,  amidst 
conversations  with  Fulke  Greville,  Lord  Brooke,  a 
man  of  no  vulgar  mind,  as  his  own  poems  declare 
him.  I  must  hold  Ludlow  Castle  an  honest 

*  Dibdin's  Literary  Reminiscences,  vol.  1,  xii. 


192  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

house,  for  which  Milton's  "  Coraus  "  was  written, 
and  the  company  nobly  bred  which  peformed  it 
with  knowledge  and  sympathy.  In  the  roll  of 
nobles,  are  found  poets,  philosophers,  chemists, 
astronomers,  also  men  of  solid  virtues  and  of  lofty 
sentiments  ;  often  they  have  been  the  friends  and 
patrons  of  genius  and  learning,  and  especially  of 
the  fine  arts  ;  and  at  this  moment,  almost  every 
great  house  has  its  sumptuous  picture-gallery. 

Of  course,  there  is  another  side  to  this  gorgeous 
show.  Every  victory  was  the  defeat  of  a  party 
only  less  worthy.  Castles  are  proud  things,  but 
'tis  safest  to  be  outside  of  them.  War  is  a  foul 
game,  and  yet  war  is  not  the  worst  part  of  aristo 
cratic  history.  In  later  times,  when  the  baron, 
educated  only  for  war,  with  his  brains  paralyzed  by 
his  stomach,  found  himself  idle  at  home,  he  grew 
fat  and  wanton,  and  a  sorry  brute.  Grammont, 
Pepys,  and  Evelyn,  show  the  kennels  to  which  the 
king  and  court  went  in  quest  of  pleasure.  Pros 
titutes  taken  from  the  theatres,  were  made  duch 
esses,  their  bastards  dukes  and  earls.  "  The  young 
men  sat  uppermost,  the  old  serious  lords  were  out  of 
favor."  The  discourse  that  the  king's  companions 
had  with  him  was  te  poor  and  frothy."  No  man 
who  valued  his  head  might  do  what  these  pot-com 
panions  familiarly  did  with  the  king.  In  logical 


ARISTOCRACY.  193 

sequence  of  these  dignified  revels,  Pepys  can  tell 
the  beggarly  shifts  to  which  the  king  was  reduced, 
who  could  not  find  paper  at  his  council  table,  and 
"  no  handkerchers  "  in  his  wardrobe,  "  and  but 
three  bands  to  his  neck,"  and  the  linen-draper  and 
the  stationer  were  out  of  pocket,  and  refusing  to 
trust  him,  and  the  baker  will  not  bring  bread  any 
longer.  Meantime,  the  English  Channel  was  swept, 
and  London  threatened  by  the  Dutch  fleet,  manned 
too  by  English  sailors,  who,  having  been  cheated  of 
their  pay  for  years  by  the  king,  enlisted  with  the 
enemy. 

The  Selwyn  correspondence  in  the  reign  of 
George  III.,  discloses  a  rottenness  in  the  aristocracy, 
which  threatened  to  decompose  the  state.  The 
sycophancy  and  sale  of  votes  and  honor,  for  place 
and  title  ;  lewdness,  gaming,  smuggling,  bribery, 
and  cheating ;  the  sneer  at  the  childish  indiscretion 
of  quarrelling  with  ten  thousand  a  year  ;  the  want 
of  ideas  ;  the  splendor  of  the  titles,  and  the  apa 
thy  of  the  nation,  are  instructive,  and  make  the 
reader  pause  and  explore  the  firm  bounds  which 
confined  these  vices  to  a  handful  of  rich  men.  In 
the  reign  of  the  Fourth  George,  things  do  not  seem 
to  have  mended,  and  the  rotten  debauchee  let  down 
from  a  window  by  an  inclined  plane  into  his  coach 
to  take  the  air,  was  a  scandal  to  Europe  which  the 
17 


194  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

ill  fame  of  his  queen  and  of  his  family  did  nothing 
to  retrieve. 

Under  the  present  reign,  the  perfect  decorum  of 
the  Court  is  thought  to  have  put  a  check  on  the 
gross  vices  of  the  aristocracy ;  yet  gaming,  racing, 
drinking,  and  mistresses,  bring  them  down,  and 
the  democrat  can  still  gather  scandals,  if  he  will. 
Dismal  anecdotes  abound,  verifying  the  gossip  of 
the  last  generation  of  dukes  served  by  bailiffs,  with 
all  their  plate  in  pawn ;  of  great  lords  living  by  the 
showing  of  their  houses  ;  and  of  an  old  man  wheeled 
in  his  chair  from  room  to  room,  whilst  his  cham 
bers  are  exhibited  to  the  visitor  for  money ;  of 
ruined  dukes  and  earls  living  in  exile  for  debt.  The 
historic  names  of  the  Buckinghams,  Beauforts, 
Marlboroughs,  and  Hertfords,  have  gained  no  new 
lustre,  and  now  and  then  darker  scandals  break 
out,  ominous  as  the  new  chapters  added  under  the 
Orleans  dynasty  to  the  "  Causes  Celebres "  in 
France.  Even  peers,  who  are  men  of  worth  and 
public  spirit,  are  overtaken  and  embarrassed  by 
their  vast  expense.  The  respectable  Duke  of  Dev 
onshire,  willing  to  be  the  Mecaenas  and  Lucullus  of 
his  island,  is  reported  to  have  said,  that  he  cannot 
live  at  Chatsworth  but  one  month  in  the  year. 
Their  many  houses  eat  them  up.  They  cannot  sell 
them,  because  they  are  entailed.  They  will  not  let 


ARISTOCRACY.  195 

them,  for  pride's  sake,,  but  keep  them  empty,  aired, 
and  the  grounds  mown  and  dressed,  at  a  cost  of 
four  or  five  thousand  pounds  a  year.  The  spending 
is  for  a  great  part  in  servants,  in  many  houses 
exceeding  a  hundred. 

Most  of  them  are  only  chargeable  with  idleness, 
which,  because  it  squanders  such  vast  power  of 
benefit,  has  the  mischief  of  crime.  "  They  might 
be  little  Providences  on  earth,"  said  my  friend, 
"  and  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  jockeys  and  fops." 
Campbell  says,  "  acquaintance  with  the  nobility, 
I  could  never  keep  up.  It  requires  a  life  of  idle 
ness,  dressing,  and  attendance  on  their  parties." 
I  suppose,  too,  that  a  feeling  of  self-respect  is  driv 
ing  cultivated  men  out  of  this  society,  as  if  the 
noble  were  slow  to  receive  the  lessons  of  the  times, 
and  had  not  learned  to  disguise  his  pride  of  place. 
A  man  of  wit,  who  is  also  one  of  the  celebrities 
of  wealth  and  fashion,  confessed  to  his  friend,  that 
he  could  not  enter  their  houses  without  being  made 
to  feel  that  they  were  great  lords,  and  he  a  low 
plebeian.  With  the  tribe  of  artistes,  including  the 
musical  tribe,  the  patrician  morgue  keeps  no  terms, 
but  excludes  them.  When  Julia  Grisi  and  Mario 
sang  at  the  houses  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and 
other  grandees,  a  cord  was  stretched  between  the 
singer  and  the  company. 


196  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Wheii  every  noble  was  a  soldier,  they  were  care 
fully  bred  to  great  personal  prowess.  The  educa 
tion  of  a  soldier  is  a  simpler  affair  than  that  of  an 
earl  in  the  nineteenth  century.  And  this  was  very 
seriously  pursued  ;  they  were  expert  in  every  spe 
cies  of  equitation,  to  the  most  dangerous  practices, 
and  this  down  to  the  accession  of  William  of 
Orange.  But  graver  men  appear  to  have  trained 
their  sons  for  civil  affairs.  Elizabeth  extended  her 
thought  to  the  future ;  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in 
his  letter  to  his  brother,  and  Milton  and  Evelyn, 
gave  plain  and  hearty  counsel.  Already  too,  the 
English  noble  and  squire  were  preparing  for  the 
career  of  the  country-gentleman,  and  his  peaceable 
expense.  They  went  from  city  to  city,  learning  re 
ceipts  to  make  perfumes,  sweet  powders,  pomanders, 
antidotes,  gathering  seeds,  gems,  coins,  and  divers 
curiosities,  preparing  for  a  private  life  thereafter,  in 
which  they  should  take  pleasure  in  these  recreations. 

All  advantages  given  to  absolve  the  young  patri 
cian  from  intellectual  labor  are  of  course  mistaken. 
ef  In  the  university,  noblemen  are  exempted  from 
the  public  exercises  for  the  degree,  &c.,  by  which 
they  attain  a  degree  called  honorary.  At  the  same 
time,  the  fees  they  have  to  pay  for  matriculation, 
and  on  all  other  occasions,  are  much  higher."* 

*  Huber.     History  of  English  Universities. 


ARISTOCRACY.  197 

Fuller  records  "  the  observation  of  foreigners, 
that  Englishmen,  by  making  their  children  gentle 
men,  before  they  are  men,  cause  they  are  so  seldom 
wise  men."  This  cockejing  justifies  Dr.  Johnson's 
bitter  apology  for  primogeniture,  "  that  it  makes 
but  one  fool  in  a  family." 

The  revolution  in  society  has  reached  this  class. 
The  great  powers  of  industrial  art  have  no  exclu 
sion  of  name  or  blood.  The  tools  of  our  time, 
namely,  steam,  ships,  printing,  money,  and  pop 
ular  education,  belong  to  those  who  can  handle 
them  :  and  their  effect  has  been,  that  advantages 
once  confined  to  men  of  family,  are  now  open  to 
the  whole  middle  class.  The  road  that  grandeur 
levels  for  his  coach,  toil  can  travel  in  his  cart. 

This  is  more  manifest  every  day,  but  I  think  it 
is  true  throughout  English  history.  English  his 
tory,  wisely  read,  is  the  vindication  of  the  brain  of 
that  people.  Here,  at  last,  were  climate  and  condi 
tion  friendly  to  the  working  faculty.  Who  now 
will  work  and  dare,  shall  rule.  This  is  the  charter, 
or  the  chartism,  which  fogs,  and  seas,  and  rains 
proclaimed,  —  that  intellect  and  personal  force 
should  make  the  law  ;  that  industry  and  adminis 
trative  talent  should  administer  ;  that  work  should 
N^ear  the  crown.  I  know  that  not  this,  but  some 
thing  else  is  pretended.  The  fiction  with  which 
17* 


198  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

the  noble  and  the  bystander  equally  please  them 
selves  is,  that  the  former  is  of  unbroken  descent 
from  the  Norman,  and  so  has  never  worked  for 
eight  hundred  years.  .All  the  families  are  new, 
but  the  name  is  old,  and  they  have  made  a  Cove 
nant  with  their  memories  not  to  disturb  it.  But 
the  analysis  of  the  peerage  and  gentry  shows 
the  rapid  decay  and  extinction  of  old  families,  the 
continual  recruiting  of  these  from  new  blood. 
The  doors,  though  ostentatiously  guarded,  are  really 
open,  and  hence  the  power  of  the  bribe.  All  the 
barriers  to  rank  only  whet  the  thirst,  and  enhance 
the  prize.  "  Now,"  said  Nelson,  when  clearing 
for  battle,  "  a  peerage,  or  Westminster  Abbey ! " 
"  I  have  no  illusion  left,"  said  Sydney  Smith,  "  but 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury."  "  The  lawyers," 
said  Burke,  "  are  only  birds  of  passage  in  this 
House  of  Commons,"  and  then  added,  with  a  new 
figure,  "  they  have  their  best  bower  anchor  in  the 
House  of  Lords." 

Another  stride  that  has  been  taken,  appears  in 
the  perishing  of  heraldry.  Whilst  the  privileges 
of  nobility  are  passing  to  the  middle  class,  the 
badge  is  discredited,  and  the  titles  of  lordship  are 
getting  musty  and  cumbersome.  I  wonder  that 
sensible  men  have  not  been  already  impatient  of 
them.  They  belong,  with  wigs,  powder,  and 


ARISTOCRACY.  199 

scarlet  coats,  to  an  earlier  age,  and  may  be  advan 
tageously  consigned,  with  paint  and  tattoo,  to  the 
dignitaries  of  Australia  and  Polynesia. 

A  multitude  of  English,  educated  at  the  univer 
sities,  bred  into  their  society  with  manners,  ability, 
and  the  gifts  of  fortune,  are  every  day  confronting 
the  peers  on  a  footing  of  equality,  and  outstripping 
them,  as  often,  in  the  race  of  honor  and  influence. 
That  cultivated  class  is  large  and  ever  enlarging. 
It  is  computed  that,  with  titles  and  without,  there 
are  seventy  thousand  of  these  people  coming  and 
going  in  London,  who  make  up  what  is  called  high 
society.  They  cannot  shut  their  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  an  untitled  nobility  possess  all  the  power 
without  the  inconveniences  that  belong  to  rank, 
and  the  rich  Englishman  goes  over  the  world  at 
the  present  day,  drawing  more  than  all  the  advan 
tages  which  the  strongest  of  his  kings  could 
command. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

UNIVERSITIES. 

OF  British  universities,  Cambridge  has  the  most 
illustrious  names  on  its  list.  At  the  present  day,, 
too,  it  has  the  advantage  of  Oxford,  counting  in  its 
alumni  a  greater  number  of  distinguished  scholars. 
I  regret  that  I  had  but  a  single  day  wherein  to  see 
King's  College  Chapel,  the  beautiful  lawns  and 
gardens  of  the  colleges,  and  a  few  of  its  gownsmen. 

But  I  availed  myself  of  some  repeated  invita 
tions  to  Oxford,  where  I  had  introductions  to  Dr. 
Daubeny,  Professor  of  Botany,  and  to  the  Regius 
Professor  of  Divinity,  as  well  as  to  a  valued  friend, 
a  Fellow  of  Oriel,  and  went  thither  on  the  last  day 
of  March,  1848.  I  was  the  guest  of  my  friend  in 
Oriel,  was  housed  close  upon  that  college,  and  I 
lived  on  college  hospitalities. 

My  new  friends  showed  me  their  cloisters,  the 
Bodleian  Library,  the  Randolph  Gallery,  Merton 
Hall,  and  the  rest.  I  saw  several  faithful,  high- 
minded  young  men,  some  of  them  in  the  mood  of 

(200) 


UNIVERSITIES.  201 

making  sacrifices  for  peace  of  mind,  —  a  topic,  of 
course,  on  which  I  had  no  counsel  to  offer.  Their 
affectionate  and  gregarious  ways  reminded  me  at 
once  of  the  habits  of  our  Cambridge  men,  though  I 
imputed  to  these  English  an  advantage  in  their  secure 

and "polished  manners.  Trie  halls  are  rich  with 

oalfen  wainscoting  and  ceiling.  The  pictures  of 
the  founders  hang  from  the  walls  ;  the  tables  glit 
ter  with  plate.  A  youth  came  forward  to  the  upper 
table,  and  pronounced  the  ancient  form  of  grace 
bfi£w«~~«rea:rB",  which,  I  suppose,  has  been  in  use 
here  for  ages,  Benedictus  benedicat ;  benedicitur, 
benedicatur.  % 

It  is  a  curious  proof  of  the  English  use  and 
wont,  or  of  their  good  nature,  that  these  young 
men  are  locked  up  every  night  at  nine  o'clock,  and 
the  porter  at  each  hall  is  required  to  give  the  name 
of  any  belated  student  who  is  admitted  after  that 
hour.  Still  more  descriptive  is  the  fact,  that  out 
of  twelve  hundred  young  men,  comprising  the 
most  spirited  of  the  aristocracy,  a  duel  has  never 
occurred. 

Oxford  is  old,  even  in  England,  and  conserva 
tive.  Its  foundations  date  from  Alfred,  and  even 
from  Arthur,  if,  as  is  alleged,  the  Pheryllt  of  the 
Druids  had  a  seminary  here.  In  the  reign  of  Ed 
ward  I.,  it  is  pretended,  here  were  thirty  thousand 


202  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

students ;  and  nineteen  most  noble  foundations 
were  then  established.  Chaucer  found  it  as  firm 
as  if  it  had  always  stood ;  and  it  is,  in  British  story^ 
rich  with  great  names,  the  school  of  the  island, 
and  the  link  of  England  to  the  learned  of  Europe. 
Hither  came  Erasmus,  with  delight,  in  1497. 
Albericus  Gentilis,  in  1580,  was  relieved  and  main 
tained  by  the  university.  Albert  Alaskie,  a  noble 
Polonian,  Prince  of  Sirad,  who  visited  England  to 
admire  the  wisdom  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  was  enter 
tained  with  stage-plays  in  the  Refectory  of  Christ- 
church,  in  1583.  Isaac  Casaubon,  coming  from 
Henri  Quatre  of  France,  by  invitation  of  James 
I.,  was  admitted  to  Christ's  College,  in  July,  1613. 
I  saw  the  Ashmolean  Museum,  whither  Elias  Ash- 
mole,  in  1682,  sent  twelve  cart-loads  of  rarities. 
Here  indeed  was  the  Olympia  of  all  Antony  Wood's 
and  Aubrey's  games  and  heroes,  and  every  inch  of 
ground  has  its  lustre.  For  Wood's  Athena  Ox- 
onienses,  or  calendar  of  the  writers  of  Oxford  for 
two  Hundred  years,  is  a  lively  record  of  English 
manners  and  merits,  and  as  much  a  national  mon 
ument  as  Purchas's  Pilgrims  or  Hansard's  Regis 
ter.  On  every  side,  Oxford  is  redolent  of  age  and 
authority.  Its  gates  shut  of  themselves  against 
modern  innovation.  It  is  still  governed  by  the 
statutes  of  Archbishop  Laud.  The  books  in  Mer- 


UNIVERSITIES.  203 

ton  Library  are  still  chained  to  the  wall.  Here, 
on  August  27,  1660,  John  Milton's  Pro  Populo 
A.nglicano  Defensio,  and  Iconoclastes  were  commit 
ted  to  the  flames.  I  saw  the  school-court  or  quad 
rangle,  where,  in  1683,  the  Convocation  caused  the 
Leviathan  of  Thomas  Hobbes  to  be  publicly  burnt. 
I  do  not  know  whether  this  learned  body  have  yet 
heard  of  the  Declaration  of  American  Independ 
ence,  or  whether  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy  does  not 
still  hold  its  ground  against  the  novelties  of  Co 
pernicus. 

As  many  sons,  almost  so  many  benefactors.  It 
is  usual  for  a  nobleman,  or  indeed  for  almost  every 
wealthy  student,  on  quitting  college,  to  leave  be 
hind  him  some  article  of  plate ;  and  gifts  of  all 
values,  from  a  hall,  or  a  fellowship,  or  a  library, 
down  to  a  picture  or  a  spoon,  are  continually  accru 
ing,  in  the  course  of  a  century.  My  friend  Doc 
tor  J.,  gave  me  the  following  anecdote.  In  Sir 
Thomas  Lawrence's  collection  at  London,  were  the 
cartoons  of  Raphael  and  Michel  Angelo.  This 
inestimable  prize  was  offered  to  Oxford  Univer 
sity  for  seven  thousand  pounds.  The  offer  was 
accepted,  and  the  committee  charged  with  the  affair 
had  collected  three  thousand  pounds,  when  among 
other  friends,  they  called  on  Lord  Eldon.  Instead 
of  a  hundred  pounds,  he  surprised  them  by  putting 


204  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

down  his  name  for  three  thousand  pounds.  They 
told  him,  they  should  now  very  easily  raise  the 
remainder.  "  No,"  he  said,  (f  your  men  have 
probably  already  contributed  all  they  can  spare  ;  I 
can  as  well  give  the  rest "  :  and  he  withdrew  his 
cheque  for  three  thousand,  and  wrote  four  thousand 
pounds.  I  saw  the  whole  collection  in  April,  1848. 
In  the  Bodleian  Library,  Dr.  Bandinel  showed 
me  the  manuscript  Plato,  of  the  date  of  A.  D. 
896,  brought  by  Dr.  Clarke  from  Egypt ;  a  man 
uscript  Virgil,  of  the  same  century ;  the  first 
Bible  printed  at  Mentz,  (I  believe  in  1450)  ;  and 
a  duplicate  of  the  same,  which  had  been  deficient 
in  about  twenty  leaves  at  the  end.  But,  one  day, 
being  in  Venice,  he  bought  a  room  full  of  books 
and  manuscripts,  —  every  scrap  and  fragment,  — 
for  four  thousand  louis  d'ors,  and  had  the  doors 
locked  and  sealed  by  the  consul.  On  proceeding, 
afterwards,  to  examine  his  purchase,  he  found  the 
twenty  deficient  pages  of  his  Mentz  Bible,  in  per 
fect  order ;  brought  them  to  Oxford,  with  the  rest 
of  his  purchase,  and  placed  them  in  the  volume  ; 
but  has  too  much  awe  for  the  Providence  that  ap 
pears  in  bibliography  also,  to  suffer  the  reunited 
parts  to  be  re-bound.  The  oldest  building  here  is 
two  hundred  years  younger  than  the  frail  manu 
script  brought  by  Dr.  Clarke  from  Egypt.  No 


UNIVERSITIES.  205 

candle  or  fire  is  ever  lighted  in  the  Bodleian.  Its 
catalogue  is  the  standard  catalogue  on  the  desk  of 
every  library  in  Oxford.  In  each  several  college, 
they  underscore  in  red  ink  on  this  catalogue  the 
titles  of  books  contained  in  the  library  of  that  col 
lege,  —  the  theory  being  that  the  Bodleian  has  all 
books.  This  rich  library  spent  during  the  last  year 
(1847)  for  the  purchase  of  books  £1668. 

The  logical  English  train  a  scholar  as  they  train 
an  engineer.  Oxford  is  a  Greek  factory,  as  Wil 
ton  mills  weave  carpet,  and  Sheffield  grinds  steel. 
They  know  the  use  of  a  tutor,  as  they  know  the 
use  of  a  horse  ;  and  they  draw  the  greatest  amount 
of  benefit  out  of  both.  The  reading  men  are  kept 
by  hard  walking,  hard  riding,  and  measured  eating 
and  drinking,  at  the  top  of  their  condition,  and 
two  days  before  the  examination,  do  no  work,  but 
lounge,  ride,  or  run,  to  be  fresh  on  the  college 
doomsday.  Seven  years'  residence  is  the  theoretic 
period  for  a  master's  degree.  In  point  of  fact,  it 
has  long  been  three  years'  residence,  and  four  years 
more  of  standing.  This  "three  years"  is  about 
twenty-one  months  in  all.* 

"  The  whole  expense,"  says  Professor  Sewel, 
"  of  ordinary  college  tuition  at  Oxford,  is  about 


*  Huber,  ii.  p.  304. 

18 


206  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

sixteen  guineas  a  year."  But  this  plausible  state 
ment  may  deceive  a  reader  unacquainted  with  the 
fact,  that  the  principal  teaching  relied  on  is  private 
tuition.  And  the  expenses  of  private  tuition  are 
reckoned  at  from  £50  to  £70  a  year,  or,  $1000 
for  the  whole  course  of  three  years  and  a  half.  At 
Cambridge  $750  a  year  is  economical,  and  $1500 
not  extravagant.* 

The  number  of  students  and  of  residents,  the 
dignity  of  the  authorities,  the  value  of  the  foun 
dations,  the  history  and  the  architecture,  the 
known  sympathy  of  entire  Britain  in  what  is  done 
there,  justify  a  dedication  to  study  in  the  under 
graduate,  such  as  cannot  easily  be  in  America, 
where  his  college  is  half  suspected  by  the  Fresh 
man  to  be  insignificant  in  the  scale  beside  trade 
and  politics.  Oxford  is  a  little  aristocracy  in  itself, 
numerous  and  dignified  enough  to  rank  with  other 
estates  in  the  realm  ;  and  where  fame  and  secular 
promotion  are  to  be  had  for  study,  and  in  a  direc 
tion  which  has  the  unanimous  respect  of  all  culti 
vated  nations. 

This  aristocracy,  of  course,  repairs  its  own  losses  ; 
fills  places,  as  they  fall  vacant,  from  the  body  of 
students.  The  number  of  fellowships  at  Oxford 

*  Bristed.     Five  Years  at  an  English  University. 


UNIVERSITIES.  207 

is  540,  averaging  £200  a  year,  with  lodging  and 
diet  at  the  college.  If  a  young  American,  loving 
learning,  and  hindered  by  poverty,  were  offered  a 
home,  a  table,  the  walks,  and  the  library,  in  one 
of  these  academical  palaces,  and  a  thousand  dol 
lars  a  year  as  long  as  he  chose  to  remain  a  bach 
elor,  he  would  dance  for  joy.  Yet  these  young 
men  thus  happily  placed,  and  paid  to  read,  are 
impatient  of  their  few  checks,  and  many  of  them 
preparing  to  resign  their  fellowships.  They  shud 
dered  at  the  prospect  of  dying  a  Fellow,  and  they 
pointed  out  to  me  a  paralytic  old  man,  who  was  as 
sisted  into  the  hall.  As  the  number  of  undergrad 
uates  at  Oxford  is  only  about  1200  or  1300,  and 
many  of  these  are  never  competitors,  the  chance  of 
a  fellowship  is  very  great.  The  income  of  the  nine 
teen  colleges  is  conjectured  at  £150,000  a  year. 

The  effect  of  this  drill  is  the  radical  knowledge 
of  Greek  and  Latin,  and  of  mathematics,  and  the 
solidity  and  taste  of  English  criticism.  What 
ever  luck  there  may  be  in  this  or  that  award,  an 
Eton  captain  can  write  Latin  longs  and  shorts,  can 
turn  the  Court-Guide  into  hexameters,  and  it  is 
certain  that  a  Senior  Classic  can  quote  correctly 
from  the  Corpus  Poetarum,  and  is  critically  learned 
in  all  the  humanities.  Greek  erudition  exists  on 
the  Isis  and  Cam,  whether  the  Maud  man  or  the 


208  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Brazen  Nose  man  be  properly  ranked  or  not ;  the  '} 
atmosphere  is  loaded  with  Greek  learning  ;  the 
whole  river  has  reached  a  certain  height,  and  kills 
all  that  growth  of  weeds,  which  this  Castalian 
water  kills.  The  English  nature  takes  culture 
kindly.  So  Milton  thought.  It  refines  the  Norse-"* 
man.  Access  to  the  Greek  mind  lifts  his  standard  ~< 
of  taste.  He  has  enough  to  think  of,  and,  unless 
of  an  impulsive  nature,  is  indisposed  from  writing 
or  speaking,  by  the  fulness  of  his  mind,  and  the 
new  severity  of  his  taste.  The  great  silent  crowd 
of  thorough-bred  Grecians  always  known  to  be 
around  him,  the  English  writer  cannot  ignore. 
They  prune  his  orations,  and  point  his  pen.^  Hence, 
the  style  and  tone  of  English  journalism.  The 
men  have  learned  accuracy  and  comprehension, 
logic,  and  pace,  or  speed  of  working.  They  have 
bottom,  endurance,  wind.  When  born  with  good 
constitutions,  they  make  those  eupeptic  studying- 
mills,  the  cast-iron  men,  the  dura  ilia,  whose 
powers  of  performance  compare  with  ours,  as  the 
steam-hammer  with  the  music-box ;  —  Cokes,  Mans- 
fields,  Seldens,  and  Bentleys,  and  when  it  happens 
that  a  superior  brain  puts  a  rider  on  this  admirable 
horse,  we  obtain  those  masters  of  the  world  who 
combine  the  highest  energy  in  affairs,  with  a  supreme 
culture. 


UNIVERSITIES.  209 

It  is  contended  by  those  who  have  been  bred  at 
Eton,  Harrow,  Rugby,  and  Westminster,  that  the 
public  sentiment  within  each  of  those  schools  is 
high-toned  and  manly  ;  that,  in  their  playgrounds, 
courage  is  universally  admired,  meanness  despised, 
manly  feelings  and  generous  conduct  are  encour 
aged  :  that  an  unwritten  code  of  honor  deals  to 
the  spoiled  child  of  rank,  and  to  the  child  of  up 
start  wealth  an  even-handed  justice,  purges  their 
nonsense  out  of  both,  and  does  all  that  can  be  done 
to  make  them  gentlemen. 

Again,  at  the  universities,  it  is__urged,  that  all 
go~es  tu  fornrwh'arTEngland  values  as  the  flower 
of  its  national  life,  —  a  well^ejliicarfced —gentleman. 
TEe^Gferman  Huber,  in  describing  to  his  country 
men  the  attributes  of  an  English  gentleman,  frank 
ly  admits,  that,  ( '  in  Germany,  we  have  nothing 
of  the  kind.  A  gentleman  must  possess  a  polit 
ical  character,  an  independent  and  public  position, 
or,  at  least,  the  right  of  assuming  it.  He  must 
have  average  opulence,  either  of  his  own,  or  in  his 
family.  He  should  also  have  bodily  activity  and 
strength,  unattainable  by  our  sedentary  life  in 
public  offices.  The  race  of  English  gentlemen  \ 
presents  an  appearance  of  manly  vigor  and  form, 
not  elsewhere  to  be  found  among  an  equal  num 
ber  of  persons.  No  other  nation  produces  the 
18  * 


210  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

\stock.  Arid,  in  England,  it  has  deteriorated. 
The  university  is  a  decided  presumption  in  any 
man's  favor.  And  so  eminent  are  the  members 
that  a  glance  at  the  calendars  will  show  that  in  all 
the  world  one  cannot  be  in  better  company  than 
on  the  books  of  one  of  the  larger  Oxford  or  Cam 
bridge  colleges."  * 

These   seminaries   are  finishing   schools  for  the 

"upper  classes,  and  not  for  the  poor.  The  useful 
is  exploded.  The  definition  of  a  public  school  is 
'*'  a  school  which  excludes  all  that  could  fit  a  man 
for  standing  behind  a  counter."  f 

No  doubt,  the  foundations  have  been  perverted. 
Oxford,  which  equals  in  wealth  several  of  the 
smaller  European  states,  shuts  up  the  lectureships 
which  were  made  "  public  for  all  men  thereunto 
to  have  concourse  ;  "  mis-spends  the  revenues  be 
stowed  for  such  youths  ft  as  should  be  most  meet 
for  towardness,  poverty,  and  painfulness  ;  "  there 
is  gross  favoritism ;  many  chairs  and  many  fel 
lowships  are  made  beds  of  ease  ;  and  'tis  likely 
that  the  university  will  know  how  to  resist  and 
make  inoperative  the  terrors  of  parliamentary 

*  Huber  :  History  of  the  English  Universities.  Newman's  Trans 
lation. 

f  See  Bristed.  Five  Years  in  an  English  University.  New  York 
1852. 


UNIVERSITIES.  211 

inquiry  ;  no  doubt,  their  learning  is  grown 
obsolete ;  —  but  Oxford  also  has  its  merits,  and 
I  found  here  also  proof  of  the  national  fidel 
ity  and  thoroughness.  Such  knowledge  as  they 
prize  they  possess  and  impart.  Whether  in  course 
or  by  indirection,  whether  by  a  cramming  tutor  or 
by  examiners  with  prizes  and  foundation  scholar 
ships,  education  according  to  the  English  notion 
of  it  is  arrived  at.  I  looked  over  the  Examin 
ation  Papers  of  the  year  1848,  for  the  various 
scholarships  and  fellowships,  the  Lusby,  the  Hert 
ford,  the  Dean-Ireland,  and  the  University,  (copies 
of  which  were  kindly  given  me  by  a  Greek  pro 
fessor,)  containing  the  tasks  which  many  compet 
itors  had  victoriously  performed,  and  I  believed 
they  would  prove  too  severe  tests  for  the  candi 
dates  for  a  Bachelor's  degree  in  Yale  or  Harvard. 
And,  in  general,  here  was  proof  of  a  more  search 
ing  study  in  the  appointed  directions,  and  the 
knowledge  pretended  to  be  conveyed  was  con 
veyed.  Oxford  sends  out  yearly  twenty  or  thirty 
very  able  men,  and  three  or  four  hundred  well- 
educated  men. 

The  diet  and  rough  exercise  secure  a  certain 
amount  of  old  Norse  power.  A  fop  will  fight, 
and,  in  exigent  circumstances,  will  play  the  manly 
part.  In  seeing  these  youths,  I  believed  I  saw 


212  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

already  an  advantage  in  vigor  and  color  and  gen 
eral  habit,  over  their  contemporaries  in  the  Ameri 
can  colleges.  ISTo  doubt  much  of  the  power  and 
brilliancy  of  the  reading-men  is  merely  constitu 
tional  or  hygienic.  With  a  hardier  habit  and 
resolute  gymnastics,  with  five  miles  more  walking, 
or  five  ounces  •  less  eating,  or  with  a  saddle  and 
gallop  of  twenty  miles  a  day,  with  skating  and 
rowing-matches,  the  American  would  arrive  at  as 
robust  exegesis,  and  cheery  and  hilarious  tone.  I 
should  readily  concede  these  advantages,  which  it 
would  be  easy  to  acquire,  if  I  did  not  find  also 
that  they  read  better  than  we,  and  write  better. 

English  wealth  falling  on  their  school  and  uni 
versity  training,  makes  a  systematic  reading  of  the 
best  authors,  and  to  the  end  of  a  knowledge  how 
the  things  whereof  they  treat  really  stand:  whilst 
pamphleteer  or  journalist  reading  for  an  argument 
for  a  party,  or  reading  to  write,  or,  at  all  events, 
for  some  by-end  imposed  on  them,  must  read 
meanly  and  fragmentarily.  Charles  I.  said,  that  he 
understood  English  law  as  well  as  a  gentleman 
ought  to  understand  it. 

Then  they  have  access  to  books  ;  the  rich  libra 
ries  collected  at  every  one  of  many  thousands  of 
houses,  give  an  advantage  not  to  be  attained  by  a 
youth  in  this  country,  when  one  thinks  how  much 


UNIVERSITIES.  213 

more  and  better  may  be  learned  by  a  scholar,  who, 
immediately  on  hearing  of  a  book,  can  consult  it, 
than  by  one  who  is  on  the  quest,  for  years,  and 
reads  inferior  books,  because  he  cannot  find  the  best. 

Again,  the  great  number  of  cultivated  men  keep 
each  other  up  to  a  high  standard.  The  habit  of 
meeting  well-read  and  knowing  men  teaches  the 
art  of  omission  and  selection. 

Universities  are,  of  course,  hostile  to  geniuses, 
which  seeing  and  using  ways  of  their  own,  dis 
credit  the  routine  :  as  churches  and  monasteries 
persecute  youthful  saints.  Yet  we  all  send  our 
sons  to  college,  and,  though  he  be  a  genius,  he 
must  take  his  chance.  The  university  must  be 
retrospective.  The  gale  that  gives  direction  to 
the  vanes  on  all  its  towers  blows  out  of  antiqui 
ty.  Oxford  is  a  library,  and  the  professors  must 
be  librarians.  And  I  should  as  soon  think  of 
quarrelling  with  the  janitor  for  not  magnifying 
his  office  by  hostile  sallies  into  the  street,  like  the 
Governor  of  Kertch  or  Kinburn,  as  of  quarrel 
ling  with  the  professors  for  not  admiring  the 
young  neologists  who  pluck  the  beards  of  Euclid 
and  Aristotle,  or  for  not  attempting  themselves  to 
fill  their  vacant  shelves  as  original  writers. 

It  is  easy  to  carp  at  colleges,  and  the  college,  if 
we  will  wait  for  it,  will  have  its  own  turn.  Genius 


214  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

exists  there  also,  but  will  not  answer  a  call  of  a 
committee  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  is  rare, 
precarious,  eccentric,  and  darkling.  England  is 
the  land  of  mixture  and  surprise,  and  when  you 
have  settled  it  that  the  universities  are  moribund, 
out  comes  a  poetic  influence  from  the  heart  of 
Oxford,  to  mould  the  opinions  of  cities,  to  build 
their  houses  as  simply  as  birds  their  nests,  to  give 
veracity  to  art,  and  charm  mankind,  as  an  appeal  to 
moral  order  always  must.  But  besides  this  resto 
rative  genius,  the  best  poetry  of  England  of  this 
age,  in  the  old  forms,  comes  from  two  graduates 
of  Cambridge. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

RELIGION. 

No  people,  at  the  present  day,  can  be  explained 
by  their  national  religion.  They  do  not  feel  re 
sponsible  for  it ;  it  lies  far  outside  of  them.  Their 
loyalty  to  truth,  and  their  labor  and  expenditure 
rest  on  real  foundations,  and  not  on  a  national 
church.  And  English  life,  it  is  evident,  does  not 
grow  out  of  the  Athanasian  creed,  or  the  Articles, 
or  the  Eucharist.  It  is  with  religion  as  with  mar 
riage.  A  youth  marries  in  haste  ;  afterwards,  when 
his  mind  is  opened  to  the  reason  of  the  conduct  of 
life,  he  is  asked,  what  he  thinks  of  the  institution 
of  marriage,  and  of  the  right  relations  of  the  sexes  ? 
*  I  should  have  much  to  say,'  he  might  reply, 
'  if  the  question  were  open,  but  I  have  a  wife  and 
children,  and  all  question  is  closed  for  me.'  In 
the  barbarous  days  of  a  nation,  some  cultus  is 
formed  or  imported ;  altars  are  built,  tithes  are  paid, 
priests  ordained.  The  education  and  expenditure  of 
the  country  take  that  direction,  and  when  wealth, 

(215) 


216  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

refinement,  great  men,  and  ties  to  the  world,  super 
vene,  its  prudent  men  say,  why  fight  against  Fate, 
or  lift  these  absurdities  which  are  now  mountain 
ous  ?  Better  find  some  niche  or  crevice  in  tins 
mountain  of  stone  which  religious  ages  have  quar 
ried  and  carved,  wherein  to  bestow  yourself,  than 
attempt  any  thing  ridiculously  and  dangerously 
above  your  strength,  like  removing  it. 

In  seeing  old  castles  and  cathedrals,  I  sometimes 
say,  as  to-day,  in  front  of  Dundee  Church  tower, 
which  is  eight  hundred  years  old,  '  this  was  built 
by  another  and  a  better  race  than  any  that  now  look 
on  it.'  And,  plainly,  there  has  been  great  power 
of  sentiment  at  work  in  this  island,  of  which  these 
buildings  are  the  proofs :  as  volcanic  basalts  show 
the  work  of  fire  which  has  been  extinguished  for 
ages.  England  felt  the  full  heat  of  the  Christianity 
which  fermented  Europe,  and  drew,  like  the  chem 
istry  of  fire,  a  firm  line  between  barbarism  and 
culture.  The  power  of  the  religious  sentiment  put 
an  end  to  human  sacrifices,  checked  appetite,  in 
spired  the  crusades,  inspired  resistance  to  tyrants, 
inspired  self-respect,  set  bounds  to  serfdom  and 
slavery,  founded  liberty,  created  the  religious  ar 
chitecture, — York,  Newstead,  Westminster,  Foun 
tains  Abbey,  Bipon,  Beverley,  and  Dundee, — works 
to  which  the  key  is  lost,  with  the  sentiment  which 


RELIGION.  217 

created  them  ;  inspired  the  English  Bible,  the  lit 
urgy,  the  monkish  histories,  the  chronicle  of  Rich 
ard  of  Devizes.  The  priest  translated  the  Vulgate, 
and  translated  the  sanctities  of  old  hagiology  into 
English  virtues  on  English  ground.  It  was  a  cer 
tain  affirmative  or  aggressive  state  of  the  Cauca 
sian  races.  Man  awoke  refreshed  by  the  sleep  of 
ages.  The  violence  of  the  northern  savages  exas 
perated  Christianity  into  power.  It  lived  by  the 
love  of  the  people.  Bishop  Wilfrid  manumitted 
two  hundred  and  fifty  serfs,  whom  he  found  at- 
tached  to  the  soil.  The  clergy  obtained  respite 
from  labor  for  the  boor  on  the  Sabbath,  and  on 
church  festivals.  "  The  lord  who  compelled  his 
boor  to  labor  between  sunset  on  Saturday  and  sun 
set  on  Sunday,  forfeited  him  altogether."  The 
priest  came  out  of  the  people,  and  sympathized 
with  his  class.  <3?he  church  was  the  mediator,, 
check,  and  democratic  principle,  in  Europe.  Lati-'1 
mer,  "Wicliffe,  Arundel,  Cobham,  Antony  Parsons, 
Sir  Harry  Vane,  George  Fox,  Penn,  Bunyan  are 
the  democrats,  as  well  as  the  saints  of  their  times. 
The  Catholic  church,  thrown  on  this  toiling,  seri 
ous  people,  has  made  in  fourteen  centuries  a 
massive  system,  close  fitted  to  the  manners  and 
genius  of  the  country,  at  once  domestical  and 
stately.  In  the  long  time,  it  has  blended  with 
19 


218  ENGLISH    TRAITS, 

every  thing  in  heaven  above  and  the  earth  beneath, 
It  moves  through  a  zodiac  of  feasts  and  fasts,  names 
every  day  of  the  year,  every  town  and  market  and 
headland  and  monument,  and  has  coupled  itself 
with  the  almanac,  that  no  court  can  be  held,  no 
field  ploughed,  no  horse  shod,  without  some  leave 
from  the  church.  All  maxims  of  prudence  or  shop 
or  farm  are  fixed  and  dated  by  the  church.  Hence, 
its  strength  in  the  agricultural  districts.  The  dis 
tribution  of  land  into  parishes  enforces  a  church 
sanction  to  every  civil  privilege  ;  and  the  gradation 
of  the  clergy,  —  prelates  for  the  rich,  and  curates 
for  the  poor,  —  with  the  fact  that  a  classical  edu 
cation  has  been  secured  to  the  clergyman,  makes 
them  "  the  link  which  unites  the  sequestered 
peasantry  with  the  intellectual  advancement  of 
the  age."* 

The  English  church  has  many  certificates  to  show, 
of  humble  effective  service  in  humanizing  the  peo 
ple,  in  cheering  and  refining  men,  feeding,  healing, 
and  educating.  It  has  the  seal  of  martyrs  and 
confessors  ;  the  noblest  books ;  a  sublime  architec 
ture  ;  a  ritual  marked  by  the  same  secular  merits, 
nothing  cheap  or  purchasable. 

From   this   slow-grown  church   important   reac* 

*  Wordsworth. 


RELIGION.  219 

tions  proceed ;  much  for  culture,  much  for  giving 
a  direction  to  the  nation's  affection  and  will  to 
day.  The  carved  and  pictured  chapel,  —  its  entire 
surface  animated  with  image  and  emblem*  —  made 
the  parish-church  a  sort  of  book  and  Bible  to  the 
people's  eye. 

Then,  when  the  Saxon  instinct  had  secured  a 
service  in  the  vernacular  tongue,  it  was  the  tutor 
and  university  of  the  people.  In  York  minster,  on 
the  day  of  the  enthronization  of  the  new  arch 
bishop,  I  heard  the  service  of  evening  prayer  read 
and  chanted  in  the  choir.  It  was  strange  to  hear 
the  pretty  pastoral  of  the  betrothal  of  Rebecca  and 
Isaac,  in  the  morning  of  the  world,  read  with  cir 
cumstantiality  in  York  minster,  on  the  13th  Janu 
ary,  1848,  to  the  decorous  English  audience,  just 
fresh  from  the  Times  newspaper  and  their  wine ; 
and  listening  with  all  the  devotion  of  national 
pride.  That  was  binding  old  and  new  to  some 
purpose.  The  reverence  for  the  Scriptures  is  an 
element  of  civilization,  for  thus  has  the  history  of 
the  world  been  preserved,  and  is  preserved.  Here 
in  England  every  day  a  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  a 
leader  in  the  Times. 

Another  part  of  the  same  service  on  this  occa 
sion  was  not  insignificant.  Handel's  coronation 
anthem,  God  save  the  King,  was  played  by  Dr. 


220  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Cartridge  on  the  organ,  with  sublime  effect.  The 
minster  and  the  music  were  made  for  each  other. 
It  was  a  hint  of  the  part  the  church  plays  as  a  po 
litical  engine.  From  his  infancy,  every  English 
man  is  accustomed  to  hear  daily  prayers  for  the 
queen,  for  the  royal  family  and  the  Parliament, 
by  name ;  and  this  lifelong  consecration  of  these 
personages  cannot  be  without  influence  on  his 
opinions. 

The  universities,  also,  are  parcel  of  the  ecclesi 
astical  system,  and  their  first  design  is  to  form  the 
clergy.  Thus  the  clergy  for  a  thousand  years  have 
been  the  scholars  of  the  nation. 


The  national  temperament  deeply  enjoys  the  un 
broken  order  and  tradition  of  its  church ;  the  liturgy, 
ceremony,  architecture ;  the  sober  grace,  the  good 
company,  the  connection  with  the  throne,  and  with 
history,  which  adorn  it.  And  whilst  it  endears 
itself  thus  to  men  of  more  taste  than  activity,  the 
stability  of  the  English  nation  is  passionately  en 
listed  to  its  support,  from  its  inextricable  connection 
with  the  cause  of  public  order,  with  politics  and 
with  the  funds. 

Good  churches  are  not  built  by  bad  men ;  at 
least,  there  must  be  probity  and  enthusiasm  some- 


RELIGION.  221 

where  in  the  society.  These  minsters  were  neither 
built  nor  filled  by  atheists.  No  church  has  had 
more  learned,  industrious  or  devoted  men ;  plenty 
of  "  clerks  and  bishops,  who,  out  of  their  gowns, 
would  turn  their  backs  on  no  man."  *  Their 
architecture  still  glows  with  faith  in  immortality. 
Heats  and  genial  periods  arrive  in  history,  or,  shall 
we  say,  plenitudes  of  Divine  Presence,  by  which 
high  tides  are  caused  in  the  human  spirit,  and  great 
virtues  and  talents  appear,  as  in  the  eleventh, 
twelfth,  thirteenth,  and  again  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  when  the  nation  was  full  of 
genius  and  piety. 

But  the  age  of  the  Wicliffes,  Cobhams,  Arundels, 
Beckets  ;  of  the  Latimers,  Mores,  Cranmers ;  of 
the  Taylors,  Leightons,  Herberts ;  of  the  Sherlocks, 
and  Butlers,  is  gone.  Silent  revolutions  in  opin 
ion  have  made  it  impossible  that  men  like  these 
should  return,  or  find  a  place  in  their  once  sacred 
stalls.  The  spirit  that  dwelt  in  this  church  has 
glided  away  to  animate  other  activities  ;  and  they 
who  come  to  the  old  shrines  find  apes  and  players 
rustling  the  old  garments. 

The  religion  of  England  is  part  of  good-breed 
ing.  When  you  see  on  the  continent  the  well- 

*  Fuller. 

19* 


222  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

dressed  Englishman  come  into  his  ambassador's 
chapel,  and  put  his  face  for  silent  prayer  into  his 
smooth-brushed  hat,  one  cannot  help  feeling  how 
much  national  pride  prays  with  him,  and  the  reli 
gion  of  a  gentleman.  So  far  is  he  from  attaching 
any  meaning  to  the  words,  that  he  believes  himself 
to  have  done  almost  the  generous  thing,  and  that 
it  is  very  condescending  in  him  to  pray  to  God. 
A  great  duke  said,  on  the  occasion  of  a  victory,  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  that  he  thought  the  Almighty 
God  had  not  been  well  used  by  them,  and  that  it 
would  become  their  magnanimity,  after  so  great 
successes,  to  take  order  that  a  proper  acknowledg 
ment  be  made.  It  is  the  church  of  the  gentry ; 
but  it  is  not  the  church  of  the  poor.  The  opera 
tives  do  not  own  it,  and  gentlemen  lately  testified 
in  the  House  of  Commons  that  in  their  lives  they 
never  saw  a  poor  man  in  a  ragged  coat  inside  a 
church. 

The  torpidity  on  the  side  of  religion  of  the  vigor 
ous  English  understanding,  shows  how  much  wit 
and  folly  can  agree  in  one  brain.  Their  religion  is  a 
quotation  ;  their  church  is  a  doll ;  and  any  exam 
ination  is  interdicted  with  screams  of  terror.  In 
good  company,  you  expect  them  to  laugh  at  the 
fanaticism  of  the  vulgar ;  but  they  do  not :  they 
are  the  vulgar. 


RELIGION.  223 

The  English,  in  common  perhaps  with  Christen 
dom  in  the  nineteenth  century,  do  not  respect 
power,  but  only  performance  ;  value  ideas  only  for 
an  economic  result.  Wellington  esteems  a  saint 
only  as  far  as  he  can  be  an  army  chaplain  :  —  "  Mr. 
Briscoll,  by  his  admirable  conduct  and  good  sense, 
got  the  better  of  Methodism,  which  had  appeared 
among  the  soldiers,  and  once  among  the  officers." 
They  value  a  philosopher  as  they  value  an  apothe 
cary  who  brings  bark  or  a  drench ;  and  inspiration 
is  only  some  blowpipe,  or  a  finer  mechanical  aid. 

I  suspect  that  there  is  in  an  Englishman's  brain 
a  valve  that  can  be  closed  at  pleasure,  as  an  engi 
neer  shuts  off  steam.  The  most  sensible  and  well- 
informed  men  possess  the  power  of  thinking  just 
so  far  as  the  bishop  in  religious  matters,  and  as  the 
chancellor  of  the  exchequer  in  politics.  They 
talk  with  courage  and  logic,  and  show  you  magnif 
icent  results,  but  the  same  men  who  have  brought 
free  trade  or  geology  to  their  present  standing, 
look  grave  and  lofty,  and  shut  down  their  valve, 
as  soon  as  the  conversation  approaches  the  English 
church.  After  that,  you  talk  with  a  box-turtle.  v 

The  action  of  the  university,  both  in  what  is 
taught,  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  place,  is  directed 
more  on  producing  an  English  gentleman,  than  a 
saint  or  a  psychologist.  It  ripens  a  bishop,  and 


224  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

extrudes  a  philosopher.  I  do  not  know  that  there 
is  more  cabalism  in  the  Anglican,  than  in  other 
churches,  but  the  Anglican  clergy  are  identified 
with  the  aristocracy.  They  say,  here,  that,  if  you 
talk  with  a  clergyman,  you  are  sure  to  find  him 
well-bred,  informed,  and  candid.  He  entertains 
your  thought  or  your  project  with  sympathy  and 
praise.  But  if  a  second  clergyman  come  in,  the 
sympathy  is  at  an  end  :  two  together  are  inaccessi 
ble  to  your  thought,  and,  whenever  it  comes  to 
action,  the  clergyman  invariably  sides  with  his 
church. 

The  Anglican  church  is  marked  by  the  grace 
and  good  sense  of  its  forms,  by  the  manly  grace 
of  its  clergy.  The  gospel  it  preaches,  is,  '  By  taste 
are  ye  saved.'  It  keeps  the  old  structures  in  re 
pair,  spends  a  world  of  money  in  music  and  build 
ing  ;  and  in  buying  Pugin,  and  architectural  litera 
ture.  It  has  a  general  good  name  for  amenity  and 
mildness.  It  is  not  in  ordinary  a  persecuting 
church  ;  it  is  not  inquisitorial,  not  even  inquisitive, 
is  perfectly  well-bred,  and  can  shut  its  eyes  on  all 
proper  occasions.  If  you  let  it  alone,  it  will  let 
you  alone.  But  its  instinct  is  hostile  to  all  change 
in  politics,  literature,  or  social  arts.  The  church 
has  not  been  the  founder  of  the  London  University, 
of  the  Mechanics'  Institutes,  of  the  Free  School,  or 


RELIGION.  225 

whatever  aims  at  diffusion  of  knowledge.  The 
Platonists  of  Oxford  are  as  bitter  against  this  her 
esy,  as  Thomas  Taylor. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Old  Testament  is  the  religion 
of  England.  The  first  leaf  of  the  New  Testament 
it  does  not  open.  It  believes  in  a  Providence  which 
does  not  treat  with  levity  a  pound  sterling.  They 
are  neither  transcendentalists  nor  christians.  They 
put  up  no  Socratic  prayer,  much  less  any  saintly 
prayer  for  the  queen's  mind  ;  ask  neither  for  light 
nor  right,  but  say  bluntly,  "  grant  her  in  health 
and  wealth  long  to  live."  And  one  traces  this 
Jewish  prayer  in  all  English  private  history,  from 
the  prayers  of  King  Richard,  in  Richard  of  Devi 
zes'  Chronicle,  to  those  in  the  diaries  of  Sir 
Samuel  Rornilly,  and  of  Haydon  the  painter 
"  Abroad  with  my  wife,"  writes  Pepys  piously, 
"  the  first  time  that  ever  I  rode  in  my  own  coach ; 
which  do  make  my  heart  rejoice  and  praise  God, 
and  pray  him  to  bless  it  to  me,  and  continue  it." 
The  bill  for  the  naturalization  of  the  Jews  (in  1753) 
was  resisted  by  petitions  from  all  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  and  by  petition  from  the  city  of  London, 
reprobating  this  bill,  as  ' '  tending  extremely  to  the 
dishonor  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  extremely 
injurious  to  the  interests  and  commerce  of  the 
kingdom  in  general,  and  of  the  city  of  London  in 
particular." 


226  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

But  they  have  not  been  able  to  congeal  humanity 
by  act  of  Parliament.  "  The  heavens  journey  still 
and  sojourn  not,"  and  arts,  wars,  discoveries,  and 
opinion,  go  onward  at  their  own  pace.  The  new 
age  has  new  desires,  new  enemies,  new  trades,  new 
charities,  and  reads  the  Scriptures  with  new  eyes. 
The  chatter  of  French  politics,  the  steam-whistle, 
the  hum  of  the  mill,  and  the  noise  of  embarking 
emigrants,  had  quite  put  most  of  the  old  legends 
out  of  mind  ;  so  that  when  you  came  to  read  the 
liturgy  to  a  modern  congregation,  it  was  almost  ab 
surd  in  its  unfitness,  and  suggested  a  masquerade 
of  old  costumes. 

No  chemist  has  prospered  in  the  attempt  to 
crystallize  a  religion.  It  is  endogenous,  like  the 
skin,  and  other  vital  organs.  A  new  statement 
every  day.  The  prophet  and  apostle  knew  this, 
and  the  nonconformist  confutes  the  conformists,  by 
quoting  the  texts  they  must  allow.  It  is  the  con 
dition  of  a  religion,  to  require  religion  for  its  ex 
positor.  Prophet  and  apostle  can  only  be  rightly 
understood  by  prophet  and  apostle.  The  states 
man  knows  that  the  religious  element  will  not  fail, 
any  more  than  the  supply  of  fibrine  and  chyle  ; 
but  it  is  in  its  nature  constructive,  and  will  organ 
ize  such  a  church  as  it  wants.  The  wise  legislator 
will  spend  on  temples,  schools,  libraries,  colleges 


RELIGION.  227 

but  will  shun  the  enriching  of  priests.  If,  in  any 
manner,  he  can  leave  the  election  and  paying  of 
the  priest  to  the  people,  he  will  do  well.  Like 
the  Quakers,  he  may  resist  the  separation  of  a 
class  of  priests,  and  create  opportunity  and  expec 
tation  in  the  society,  to  run  to  meet  natural  endow 
ment,  in  this  kind.  But,  when  wealth  accrues  to 
a  chaplaincy,  a  bishopric,  or  rectorship,  it  requires 
moneyed  men  for  its  stewards,  who  will  give  it 
another  direction  than  to  the  mystics  of  their  day. 
Of  course,  money  will  do  after  its  kind,  and  will 
steadily  work  to  unspiritualize  and  unchurch  the 
people  to  whom  it  was  bequeathed.  The  class 
certain  to  be  excluded  from  all  preferment  are  the 
religious,  —  and  driven  to  of  her  churches  ;  — which 
is  nature's  vis  medicatrix. 

-The  curates  are  ill  paid,  and  the  prelates  are 
overpaid.  This  abuse  draws  into  the  church  the 
children  of  the  nobility,  and  other  unfit  persons, 
who  have  a  taste  for  expense.  Thus  a  bishop  is 
only  a  surpliced  merchant.  Through  his  lawn,  I  can 
see  the  bright  buttons  of  the  shopman's  coat  glit 
ter.  A  wealth  like  that  of  Durham  makes  almost 
a  premium  on  felony.  Brougham,  in  a  speech  in 
the  House  of  Commons  on  the  Irish  elective 
franchise,  said,  "  How  will  the  reverend  bishops 
of  the  other  house  be  able  to  express  their  due  ab- 


228  ENGLISH    TKA1TS. 

horrence  of  the  crime  of  perjury,  who  solemnly 
declare  in  the  presence  of  God,  that  when  they 
are  called  upon  to  accept  a  living,  perhaps  of 
£4000  a  year,  at  that  very  instant,  they  are  moved 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  accept  the  office  and  admin 
istration  thereof,  and  "  for  no  other  reason  what 
ever  ?  "  The  modes  of  initiation  are  more  dam 
aging  than  custorn-house  oaths.  The  Bishop  is 
elected  by  the  Dean  and  Prebends  of  the  cathedral. 
The  Queen  sends  these  gentlemen  a  conge  d'elire, 
or  leave  to  elect ;  but  also  sends  them  the  name 
of  the  person  whom  they  are  to  elect.  They  go 
into  the  cathedral,  chant  and  pray,  and  beseech  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  assist  them  in  their  choice  ;  and, 
after  these  invocations,  invariably  find  that  the 
dictates  of  the  Holy  Ghost  agree  with  the  recom 
mendations  of  the  Queen. 

But  you  must  pay  for  conformity.  All  goes 
well  as  long  as  you  run  with  conformists.  But 
you,  who  are  honest  man  in  other  particulars,  know, 
that  there  is  alive  somewhere  a  man  whose  honesty 
reaches  to  this  point  also,  that  he  shall  not  kneel 
to  false  gods,  and,  on  the  day  when  you  meet  him, 
you  sink  into  the  class  of  counterfeits.  Besides, 
this  succumbing  has  grave  penalties.  If  you  take 
in  a  lie,  you  must  take  in  all  that  belongs  to  it. 
England  accepts  this  ornamented  national  church, 


RELIGION.  229 

and  it  glazes  the  eyes,  bloats  the  flesh,  gives  the 
voice  a  stertorous  clang,  and  clouds  the  under 
standing  of  the  receivers. 

The  English  church,  undermined  by  German 
criticism,  had  nothing  left  but  tradition,  and  was 
led  logically  back  to  Romanism.  But  that  was  an 
element  which  only  hot  heads  could  breathe  :  in 
view  of  the  educated  class,  generally,  it  was  not  a 
fact  to  front,  the  sun  ;  and  the  alienation  of  such 
men  from  the  church  became  complete. 

Nature,  to  be  sure,  had  her  remedy.  Religious 
persons  are  driven  out  of  the  Established  Church 
into  sects,  which  instantly  rise  to  credit,  and  hold 
the  Establishment  in  check.  Nature  has  sharper 
remedies,  also.  The  English,  abhorring  change  in 
all  things,  abhorring  it  most  in  matters  of  religion, 
cling  to  the  last  rag  of  form,  and  are  dreadfully 
given  to  cant.  The  English,  (and  I  wish  it  were 
confined  to  them,  but  'tis  a  taint  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood  in  both  hemispheres,)  the  English 
and  the  Americans  cant  beyond  all  other  nations. 
The  French  relinquish  all  that  industry  to  them. 
What  is  so  odious  as  the  polite  bows  to  God,  in 
our  books  and  newspapers  ?  The  popular  press  is 
flagitious  in  the  exact  measure  of  its  sanctimony, 
and  the  religion  of  the  day  is  a  theatrical  Sinai, 
where  the  thunders  are  supplied  by  the  property- 
20 


230  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

man.  The  fanaticism  and  hypocrisy  create  satire. 
Punch  finds  an  inexhaustible  material.  Dickens 
writes  novels  on  Exeter-Hall  humanity.  Thack 
eray  exposes  the  heartless  high  life.  Nature  re 
venges  herself  more  summarily  by  the  heathenism 
of  the  lower  classes.  Lord  Shaftesbury  calls  the 
poor  thieves  together,  and  reads  sermons  to  them, 
and  they  call  it  e  gas.'  George  Borrow  summons 
the  Gypsies  to  hear  his  discourse  on  the  Hebrews 
in  Egypt,  and  reads  to  them  the  Apostles'  Creed 
in  Rommany.  "  When  I  had  concluded,"  he  says, 
"  I  looked  around  me.  The  features  of  the  as 
sembly  were  twisted,  and  the  eyes  of  all  turned 
upon  me  with  a  frightful  squint :  not  an  individual 
present  but  squinted  ;  the  genteel  Pepa,  the  good- 
humored  Chicharona,  the  Cosdami,  all  squinted  : 
the  Gypsy  jockey  squinted  worst  of  all." 

The  church  at  this  moment  is  much  to  be  pitied. 
She  has  nothing  left  but  possession.  If  a  bishop 
meets  an  intelligent  gentleman,  and  reads  fatal  in 
terrogations  in  his  eyes,  he  has  no  resource  but  to 
take  wine  with  him.  False  position  introduces 
cant,  perjury,  simony,  and  ever  a  lower  class  of 
mind  and  character  into  the  clergy  :  and,  when 
the  hierarchy  is  afraid  of  science  and  education, 
afraid  of  piety,  afraid  of  tradition^  and  afraid  of 
theology,  there  is  nothing  left  but  to  quit  a  church 
which  i«  no  longer  one. 


RELIGION.  231 

But  the  religion  of  England,  —  is  it  the  Estab 
lished  Church  ?  no  ;  is  it  the  sects  ?  no  ;  they 
are  only  perpetuations  of  some  private  man's  dis 
sent,  and  are  to  the  Established  Church  as  cabs 
are  to  a  coach,  cheaper  and  more  convenient,  but 
really  the  same  thing.  Where  dwells  the  religion  ? 
Tell  me  first  where  dwells  electricity,  or  motion, 
or  thought  or  gesture.  They  do  not  dwell  or  stay 
at  all.  Electricity  cannot  be  made  fast,  mortared 
up  and  ended,  like  London  Monument,  or  the 
Tower,  so  that  you  shall  know  where  to  find  it, 
and  keep  it  fixed,  as  the  English  do  with  their 
things,  forevermore  ;  it  is  passing,  glancing,  ges- 
ticular  ;  it  is  a  traveller,  a  newness,  a  surprise,  a 
secret,  which  perplexes  them,  and  puts  them  out. 
Yet,  if  religion  be  the  doing  of  all  good,  and  for 
its  sake  the  suffering  of  all  evil,  souffrir  de  tout  le 
monde  et  nefaire  souffrir  per  sonne,  that  divine  secret 
has  existed  in  England  from  the  days  of  Alfred  to 
those  of  Eomilly,  of  Clarkson,  and  of  Florence 
Nightingale,  and  in  thousands  who  have  no  fame. 


CHAPTER     XIV. 

LITERATURE. 

A  STRONG  common  sense,  which  it  is  not  easy  to 
unseat  or  disturb,  marks  the  English  mind  for  a 
thousand  years  :  a  rude  strength  newly  applied  to 
thought,  as  of  sailors  and  soldiers  who  had  lately 
learned  to  read.  They  have  no  fancy,  and  never 
are  surprised  into  a  covert  or  witty  word,  such  as 
pleased  the  Athenians  and  Italians,  and  was  con 
vertible  into  a  fable  not  long  after  ;  but  they  de 
light  in  strong  earthy  expression,  not  mistakable, 
coarsely  true  to  the  human  body,  and,  though 
spoken  among  princes,  equally  fit  and  welcome  to 
the  mob.  This  homeliness,  veracity,  and  plain 
style,  appear  in  the  earliest  extant  works,  and  in  the 
latest.  It  imports  into  songs  and  ballads  the  smell 
of  the  earth,  the  breath  of  cattle,  and,  like  a  Dutch 
painter,  seeks  a  household  charm,  though  by  pails 
and  pans.  They  ask  their  constitutional  utility  in 
verse.  The  kail  and  herrings  are  never  out  of  sight. 
The  poet  nimbly  recovers  himself  from  every 

(232) 


LITERATURE.  235 

sally  of  the  imagination.  The  English  muse  lovea 
the  farmyard,  the  lane,  and  market.  She  says, 
with  De  Stael,  "  I  tramp  in  the  mire  with  wooden 
shoes,  whenever  they  would  force  me  into  the 
clouds."  For,  the  Englishman  has  accurate  per 
ceptions  ;  takes  hold  of  things  by  the  right  end, 
'  and  there  is  no  slipperiness  in  his  grasp.  He 
loves  the  axe,  the  spade,  the  oar,  the  gun,  the 
steampipe  :  he  has  built  the  engine  he  uses.  He 
is  materialist,  economical,  mercantile.  He  must 
be  treated  with  sincerity  and  reality,  with  muffins, 
and  not  the  promise  of  muffins ;  and  prefers  his 
hot  chop,  with  perfect  security  and  convenience  in 
the  eating  of  it,  to  the  chances  of  the  amplest  and 
Frenchiest  bill  of  fare,  engraved  on  embossed  pa 
per.  When  he  is  intellectual,  and  a  poet  or  a 
philosopher,  he  carries  the  same  hard  truth  and 
the  same  keen  machinery  into  the  mental  sphere. 
IJis  mind  must  stand  on  a  fact.  He  will  not  be 
baffled,  or  catch  at  clouds,  but  the  mind  must  have 
a  symbol  palpable  and  resisting.  What  he  relishes 
in  Dante,  is  the  vice-like  tenacity  with  which  he 
holds  a  mental  image  before  the  eyes,  as  if  it  were 
a  scutcheon  painted  on  a  shield.  Byron  "  liked 
something  craggy  to  break  his  mind  upon."  A 
taste  for  plain  strong  speech,  what  is  called  a  bibli-- 
cal  style,  marks  the  English.  It  is  in  Alfred,  and 
20* 


234  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

the  Saxon  Chronicle,  and  in  the  Sagas  of  the 
Northmen.  Latimer  was  homely.  Hobbes  was 
perfect  in  the  "noble  vulgar  speech."  Donne, 
Bunyan,  Milton,  Taylor,  Evelyn,  Pepys,  Hooker, 
Cotton,  and  the  translators,  wrote  it.  How  real 
istic  or  materialistic  in  treatment  of  his  subject,  is 
Swift.  He  describes  his  fictitious  persons,  as  if 
for  the  police.  Defoe  has  no  insecurity  or  choice. 
Hudibras  has  the  same  hard  mentality,  —  keeping 
the  truth  at  once  to  the  senses,  and  to  the  intellect. 

It  is  not  less  seen  in  poetry.  Chaucer's  hard 
painting  of  his  Canterbury  pilgrims  satisfies  the 
senses.  Shakspeare,  Spenser,  and  Milton,  in  their 
loftiest  ascents,  have  this  national  grip  and  exacti 
tude  of  mind.  This  mental  materialism  makes 
the  value  of  English  transcendental  genius  ;  in 
these  writers,  and  in  Herbert,  Henry  More,  Donne, 
and  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  The  Saxon  materialism 
and  narrowness,  exalted  into  the  sphere  of  intel 
lect,  makes  the  very  genius  of  Shakspeare  arid 
Milton.  When  it  reaches  the  pure  element,  it 
treads  the  clouds  as  securely  as  the  adamant.  Even 
in  its  elevations,  materialistic,  its  poetry  is  common 
sense  inspired  ;  or  iron  raised  to  white  heat. 

The  marriage  of  the  two  qualities  is  in  their 
speech.  It  is  a  tacit  rule  of  the  language  to  make 
the  frame  or  skeleton,  of  Saxon  words,  and,  when 


LITERATURE.  235 

elevation  or  ornament  is  sought,  to  interweave 
Roman  ;  but  sparingly ;  nor  is  a  sentence  made 
•  of  Roman  words  alone,  without  loss  of  strength. 
The  children  and  laborers  use  the  Saxon  unmixed. 
The  Latin  unmixed  is  abandoned  to  the  colleges 
and  Parliament.  Mixture  is  a  secret  of  the  Eng 
lish  island  ;  and,  in  their  dialect,  the  male  principle 
is  the  Saxon  ;  the  female,  the  Latin  ;  and  they  are 
combined  in  every  discourse.  A  good  writer,  if 
he  has  indulged  in  a  Roman  roundness,  makes 
haste  to  chasten  and  nerve  his  period  by  English 
monosyllables. 

When  the  Gothic  nations  came  into  Europe, 
they  found  it  lighted  with  the  sun  and  moon  of 
Hebrew  and  of  Greek  genius.  The  tablets  of 
their  brain,  long  kept  in  the  dark,  were  finely 
sensible  to  the  double  glory.  To  the  images  from 
this  twin  source  (of  Christianity  and  art),  the  mind 
became  fruitful  as  by.  the  incubation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  The  English  mind  flowered  in  every  fac 
ulty.  The  common-sense  was  surprised  and  in 
spired.  Eor  two  centuries,  England  was  philosoph 
ic,  religious,  poetic.  The  mental  furniture  seemed 
of  larger  scale ;  the  memory  capacious  like  the 
storehouse  of  the  rains  ;  the  ardor  and  endurance 
of  study  ;  the  boldness  and  facility  of  their  mental 
construction ;  their  fancy,  and  imagination,  and 


236  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

easy  spanning  of  vast  distances  of  thought ;  the 
enterprise  or  accosting  of  new  subjects  ;  and,  gen 
erally,  the  easy  exertion  of  power,  astonish,  like 
the  legendary  feats  of  Guy  of  Warwick.  The 
union  of  Saxon  precision  and  oriental  soaring,  of 
which  Shakspeare  is  the  perfect  example,  is  shared 
in  less  degree  by  the  writers  of  two  centuries.  I 
find  not  only  the  great  masters  out  of  all  rivalry 
and  reach,  but  the  whole  writing  of  the  time 
charged  with  a  masculine  force  and  freedom. 

There  is  a  hygienic  simpleness,  rough  vigor,  and 
closeness  to  the  matter  in  hand,  even  in  the  second 
and  third  class  of  writers  ;  and,  I  think,  in  the 
common  style  of  the  people,  as  one  finds  it  in  the 
citation  of  wills,  letters,  and  public  documents,  in 
proverbs,  and  forms  of  speech.  The  more  hearty 
and  sturdy  expression  may  indicate  that  the  sav- 
ageness  of  the  Norseman  was  not  all  gone.  Their 
dynamic  brains  hurled  off  their  words,  as  the  re 
volving  stone  hurls  off  scraps  of  grit.  I  could  cite 
from  the  seventeenth  cent  ary  sentences  and  phrases 
of  edge  not  to  be  matched  in  the  nineteenth. 
Their  poets  by  simple  ijrce  of  mind  equalized 
themselves  with  the  accumulated  science  of  ours. 
The  country  gentlemen  had  a  posset  or  drink  they 
called  October  ;  and  the  poets,  as  if  by  this  hint, 
knew  how  to  distil  the  whole  season  into  their 


LITERATURE.  237 

autumnal  verses  :  and,  as  nature,  to  pique  the  more, 
sometimes  works  up  deformities  into  beauty,  in 
some  rare  Aspasia,  or  Cleopatra ;  and,  as  the  Greek 
art  wrought  many  a  vase  or  column,  in  which  too 
long,  or  too  lithe,  or  nodes,  or  pits  and  flaws,  are 
made  a  beauty  of ;  so  these  were  so  quick  and  vital, 
that  they  could  charm  and  enrich  by  mean  and 
vulgar  objects. 

A  man  must  think  that  age  well  taught  and 
thoughtful,  by  which  masques  and  poems,  like 
those  of  Ben  Jonson,  full  of  heroic  sentiment  in  a 
manly  style,  were  received  with  favor.  The  unique 
fact  in  literary  history,  the  unsurprised  reception 
of  Shakspeare ;  —  the  reception  proved  by  his 
making  his  fortune  ;  and  the  apathy  proved  by  the 
absence  of  all  contemporary  panegyric,  —  seems  to 
demonstrate  an  elevation  in  the  mind  of  the  peo 
ple.  Judge  of  the  splendor  of  a  nation,  by  the 
insignificance  of  great  individuals  in  it.  The 
manner  in  which  they  learned  Greek  and  Latin, 
before  our  modern  facilities  were  yet  ready,  with 
out  dictionaries,  grammars,  or  indexes,  by  lectures 
of  a  professor,  followed  by  their  own  searchings, 
—  required  a  more  robust  memory,  and  coopera 
tion  of  all  the  faculties  ;  and  their  scholars,  Cam- 
den,  Usher,  Selden,  Mede,  Gataker,  Hooker,  Tay 
lor,  Burton,  Beritley,  Brian  Walton,  acquired  the 
solidity  and  method  of  engineers. 


238  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

The  influence  of  Plato  tinges  the  British  genius. 
Their  minds  loved  analogy ;  were  cognisant  of 
resemblances,  and  climbers  on  the  staircase  of  unity. 
'Tis  a  very  old  strife  between  those  who  elect  to 
see  "identity,  and  those  who  elect  to  see  discrepan 
ces  ;  and  it  renews  itself  in  Britain.  The  poets, 
of  course,  are  of  one  part ;  the  men  of  the  world, 
of  the  other.  But  Britain  had  many  disciples  of 
Plato ;  —  More,  Hooker,  Bacon,  Sidney,  Lord 
Brooke,  Herbert,  Browne,  Donne,  Spenser,  Chap 
man,  Milton,  Crashaw,  Norris,  Cudworth,  Berke 
ley,  Jeremy  Taylor. 

Lord  Bacon  has  the  En£  lish  duality.  His  cen 
turies  of  observations,  on  useful  science,  and  his 
experiments,  I  suppose,  were  worth  nothing.  One 
hint  of  Franklin,  or  Watt,  or  Dalton,  or  Davy,  or 
any  one  who  had  a  talent  for  experiment,  was 
worth  all  his  lifetime  of  exquisite  trifles.  But  he 
drinks  of  a  diviner  stream,  and  marks  the  influx 
of  idealism  into  England.  Where  that  goes,  is 
poetry,  health,  and  progress.  The  rules  of  its 
genesis  or  its  diffusion  are  not  known.  That  knowl 
edge,  if  we  had  it,  would  supersede  all  that  we  call 
science  of  the  mind.  It  seems  an  affair  of  race,  or 
of  meta-chemistry  ;  —  the  vital  point  being,  —  how 
far  the  sense  of  unity,  or  instinct  of  seeking  re 
semblances,  predominated.  For,  wherever  the 


LITERATURE.  239 

mind  takes  a  step,  it  is,  to  put  itself  at  one  with  a 
larger  class,  discerned  beyond  the  lesser  class  with 
which  it  has  been  conversant.  Hence,  all  poetry, 
and  all  affirmative  action  comes. 

Bacon,  in  the  structure  of  his  mind,  held  of  the 
analogists,  of  the  idealists,  or  (as  we  popularly  say, 
naming  from  the  best  example)  Platonists.  Who 
ever  discredits  analogy,  and  requires  heaps  of  facts, 
before  any  theories  can  be  attempted,  has  no  poetic 
power,  and  nothing  original  or  beautiful  will  be 
produced  by  him.  Locke  is  as  surely  the  influx 
of  decomposition  and  of  prose,  as  Bacon  and  the 
Platonists,  of  growth.  The  Platonic  is  the  poetic 
tendency  ;  the  so-called  scientific  is  the  negative 
and  poisonous.  'Tis  quite  certain,  that  Spenser, 
Burns,  Byron,  and  Wordsworth  will  be  Platonists ; 
and  that  the  dull  men  will  be  Lockists.  Then  poli 
tics  and  commerce  will  absorb  from  the  educated 
class  men  of  talents  without  genius,  precisely 
because  such  have  no  resistance. 

Bacon,  capable  of  ideas,  yet  devoted  to  ends, 
required  in  his  map  of  the  mind,  first  of  all,  uni 
versality,  or  prima  philosophia,  the  receptacle  for 
all  such  profitable  observations  and  axioms  as  fall 
not  within  the  compass  of  any  of  the  special  parts 
of  philosophy,  but  are  more  common,  and  of  a 
higher  stage.  He  held  this  element  essential :  it 


240  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

is  never  out  of  mind  :  he  never  spares  rebukes  for 
such  as  neglect  it ;  believing  that  no  perfect  dis 
covery  can  be  made  in  a  flat  or  level,  but  you  must 
ascend  to  a  higher  science.  "  If  any  man  thinketh 
philosophy  and  universality  to  be  idle  studies,,  ho 
doth  not  consider  that  all  professions  are  from 
thence  served  and  supplied,  and  this  I  take  to  be 
a  great  cause  that  has  hindered  the  progression  of 
learning,  because  these  fundamental  knowledges 
have  been  studied  but  in  passage."  He  explained 
himself  by  giving  various  quaint  examples  of  the 
summary  or  common  laws,  of  which  each  science 
has  its  own  illustration.  He  complains,  that  "  lie 
finds  this  part  of  learning  very  deficient,  the  pro- 
founder  sort  of  wits  drawing  a  bucket  now  and 
then  for  their  own  use,  but  the  spring-head  un vis 
ited.  This  was  the  dry  light  which  did  scorch 
and  offend  most  men's  watery  natures."  Plato  had 
signified  the  same  sense,  when  he  said,  ts  All  the 
great  arts  require  a  subtle  and  speculative  research 
into  the  law  of  nature,  since  loftiness  of  thought 
and  perfect  mastery  over  every  subject  seem  to  be 
derived  from  some  such  source  as  this.  This 
Pericles  had,  in  addition  to  a  great  natural  genius. 
For,  meeting  with  Anaxagoras,  who  was  a  person 
of  this  kind,  he  attached  himself  to  him,  and 
nourished  himself  with  sublime  speculations  on 


LITERATURE.  241 

the  absolute  intelligence ;  and  imported  thence 
into  the  oratorical  art,  whatever  could  be  useful 
to  it." 

A  few  generalizations  always  circulate  in  the 
world,  whose  authors  we  do  not  rightly  know, 
which  astonish,  and  appear  to  be  avenues  to  vast 
kingdoms  of  thought,  and  these  are  in  the  world 
constants,  like  the  Copernican  and  Newtonian  the 
ories  in  physics.  In  England,  these  may  be  traced 
usually  to  Shakspeare,  Bacon,  Milton,  or  Hooker, 
even  to  Van  Helmont  and  Behmen,  and  do  all 
have  a  kind  of  filial  retrospect  to  Plato  and  the 
Greeks.  Of  this  kind  is  Lord  Bacon's  sentence, 
that  "  nature  is  commanded  by  obeying  her  ;  " 
his  doctrine  of  poetry,  which  "  accommodates  the 
shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind,"  or 
the  Zoroastrian  definition  of  poetry,  mystical,  yet 
exact,  "  apparent  pictures  of  unapparent  natures  ;  " 
Spenser's  creed,  that  "  soul  is  form,  and  doth  the 
body  make;  "  the  theory  of  Berkeley,  that  we  have 
no  certain  assurance  of  the  existence  of  matter ;  Doc 
tor  Samuel  Clarke's  argument  for  theism  from  the 
nature  of  space  and  time  ;  Harrington's  political 
rule,  that  power  must  rest  on  land,  —  a  rule  which 
requires  to  be  liberally  interpreted  ;  the  theory  of 
Swedenborg,  so  cosmically  applied  by  him,  that  the 
man  makes  his  heaven  and  hell ;  Hegel's  study  of 


242  ENGLISH    TltAITS, 

civil  history,  as  the  conflict  of  ideas  and  the  vic 
tory  of  the  deeper  thought ;  the  identity-philoso 
phy  of  Schelling,  couched  in  the  statement  that 
"  all  difference  is  quantitative."  So  the  very  an 
nouncement  of  the  theory  of  gravitation,  of  Kep 
ler's  three  harmonic  laws,  and  even  of  Dalton's 
doctrine  of  definite  proportions,  finds  a  sudden 
response  in  the  mind,  which  remains  a  superior 
evidence  to  empirical  demonstrations.  I  cite  these 
generalizations,  some  of  which  are  more  recent, 
merely  to  indicate  a  class.  Not  these  particulars, 
but  the  mental  plane  or  the  atmosphere  from  which 
they  emanate,  was  the  home  and  element  of  the 
writers  and  readers  in  what  we  loosely  call  the 
Elizabethan  age,  (say,  in  literary  history,  the 
period  from  1575  to  1625,)  yet  a  period  almost 
short  enough  to  justify  Ben  Jonson's  remark  on 
Lord  Bacon ;  "  about  his  time,  and  within  his 
view,  were  born  all  the  wits  that  coukl  honor  a 
nation,  or  help  study." 

Such  richness  of  genius  had  not  existed  more 
than  once  before.  These  heights  could  not  be 
maintained.  As  we  find  stumps  of  vast  trees  in 
our  exhausted  soils,  and  have  received  traditions 
of  their  ancient  fertility  to  tillage,  so  history  reck 
ons  epochs  in  which  the  intellect  of  famed  races 
,  became  effete.  So  it  fared  with  English  genius. 


LITERATURE.  245 

These  heights  were  followed  by  a  meanness,  and  a 
descent  of  the  mind  into  lower  levels  ;  the  loss  of 
wings  ;  no  high  speculation.  Locke,  to  whom  the 
meaning  of  ideas  was  unknown,  became  the  type  of 
philosophy,  and  his  "  understanding  "  the  measure, 
in  all  nations,  of  the  English  intellect.  His  coun 
trymen  forsook  the  lofty  sides  of  Parnassus,  on 
which  they  had  once  walked  with  echoing  steps,  and 
disused  the  studies  once  so  beloved  ;  the  powers  of 
thought  fell  into  neglect.  The  later  English  want 
the  faculty  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  of  grouping 
men  in  natural  classes  by  an  insight  of  general 
laws,  so  deep,  that  the  rule  is  deduced  with  equal 
precision  from  few  subjects  or  from  one,  as  from 
multitudes  of  lives.  Shakspeare  is  supreme  in 
that,  as  in  all  the  great  mental  energies.  The 
Germans  generalize  :  the  English  cannot  interpret 
the  German  mind.  German  science  comprehends 
the  English.  The  absence  of  the  faculty  in  Eng 
land  is  shown  by  the  timidity  which  accumulates 
mountains  of  facts,  as  a  bad  general  wants  myriads 
of  men,  and  miles  of  redoubts,  to  compensate  the 
inspirations  of  courage  and  conduct. 

The  English  shrink  from  a  generalization.  "  They 
do  not  look  abroad  into  universality,  or  they  draw 
only  a  bucket-full  at  the  fountain  of  the  First  Phi 
losophy  for  their  occasion,  and  do  not  go  to  the 


244  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

spring-head."  Bacon,  who  said  this,  is  almost 
unique  among  his  countrymen  in  that  faculty,  at 
least  among  the  prose-writers.  Milton,  who  was 
the  stair  or  high  table-land  to  let  down  the  English 
genius  from  the  summits  of  Shakspeare,  used  this 
privilege  sometimes  in  poetry,  more  rarely  in  prose. 
For  a  long  interval  afterwards,  it  is  not  found. 
Burke  was  addicted  to  generalizing,  but  his  was  a 
shorter  line  ;  as  his  thoughts  have  less  depth,  they 
have  less  compass.  Hume's  abstractions  are  not 
deep  or  wise.  He  owes  his  fame  to  one  keen  ob 
servation,  that  no  copula  had  been  detected  be 
tween  any  cause  and  effect,  either  in  physics  or 

-  in  thought ;  that  the  term  cause  and  effect  was 
loosely  or  gratuitously  applied  to  wrhat  we  know 
only  as  consecutive,  not  at  all  as  causal.  Doctor 
Johnson's  written  abstractions  have  little  value : 
the  tone  of  feeling  in  them  makes  their  chief 
worth. 

Mr.  Hallam,  a  learned  and  elegant  scholar,  has 
written  the  history  of  European  literature  for  three 
centuries,  —  a  performance  of  great  ambition,  in 
asmuch  as  a  judgment  was  to  be  attempted  on  every 
book.  But  his  eye  does  not  reach  to  the  ideal 
standards  :  the  verdicts  are  all  dated  from  London  : 

.  all  new  thought  must  be  cast  into  the  old  moulds. 
The  expansive  element  wrhich  creates  literature  is 


LITERATURE.  245 

steadily  denied.  Plato  is  resisted,  and  his  school. 
Hallam  is  uniformly  polite,  but  with  deficient 
sympathy  ;  writes  with  resolute  generosity,  but  is 
unconscious  of  the  deep  worth  which  lies  in  the 
mystics,  and  which  often  outvalues  as  a  seed  of 
power  and  a  source  of  revolution  all  the  correct 
writers  and  shining  reputations  of  their  day.  He 
passes  in  silence,  or  dismisses  with  a  kind  of  con 
tempt,  the  profounder  masters :  a  lover  of  ideas  is 
not  only  uncongenial,  but  unintelligible.  Hallam 
inspires  respect  by  his  knowledge  and  fidelity,  by 
his  manifest  love  of  good  books,  and  he  lifts  him 
self  to  own  better  than  almost  any  the  greatness  of 
Shakspeare,  and  better  than  Johnson  he  appreci 
ates  Milton.  But  in  Hallam,  or  in  the  firmer 
intellectual  nerve  of  Mackintosh,  one  still  finds  the 
same  type  of  English  genius.  It  is  wise  and  rich, 
but  it  lives  on  its  capital.  It  is  retrospective. 
How  can  it  discern  and  hail  the  new  forms  that  are 
looming  up  OL  the  horizon,  —  new  and  gigantic 
thoughts  which  cannot  dress  themselves  out  of  any 
old  wardrobe  of  the  past '( 

The  essays,  the  fiction,  and  the  poetry  of  the  day 
have  the  like  municipal  limits.  Dickens,  with 
preternatural  apprehension  of  the  language  of  man 
ners,  and  the  varieties  of  street  life,  with  pathos 
and  laughter,  with  patriotic  and  still  enlarging 
21* 


246  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

generosity,  writes  London  tracts.  He  is  a  painter 
of  English  details,  like  Hogarth ;  local  and  tem 
porary  in  his  tints  and  style,  and  local  in  his  aims. 
Bulwer,  an  industrious  writer,  with  occasional  abil 
ity,  is  distinguished  for  his  reverence  of  intellect 
as  a  temporality,  and  appeals  to  the  worldly  am 
bition  of  the  student.  His  romances  tend  to  fan 
these  low  flames.  Their  novelists  despair  of  the 
heart.  Thackeray  finds  that  God  has  made  no  al 
lowance  for  the  poor  thing  in  his  universe ;  — 
more's  the  pity,  he  thinks  ;  —  but  'tis  not  for  us  to 
be  wiser  :  we  must  renounce  ideals,  and  accept 
London. 

The  brilliant  Macaulay,  who  expresses  the  tone 
of  the  English  governing  classes  of  the  day,  ex 
plicitly  teaches,  that  good  means  good  to  eat,  good 
to  wear,  material  commodity ;  that  the  glory  of 
modern  philosophy  is  its  direction  on  "  fruit  ;  "  to 
yield  economical  inventions  ;  and  that  its  merit  is 
to  avoid  ideas,  and  avoid  morals  He  thinks  it 
the  distinctive  merit  of  the  Baconian  philosophy, 
in  its  triumph  over  the  old  Platonic,  its  disen 
tangling  the  intellect  from  theories  of  the  all-Fair 
and  all-Good,  and  pinning  it  down  to  the  making 
a  better  sick  chair  and  a  better  wine-whey  for  an. 
invalid  ;  —  this  not  ironically,  but  in  good  faith ; 
—  that,  "  solid  advantage,"  as  he  calls  it,  meaning 


LITERATURE,  247 

always  sensual  benefit,  is  the  only  good.  The 
eminent  benefit  of  astronomy  is  the  better  nav 
igation  it  creates  to  enable  the  fruit-ships  to  bring 
home  their  lemons  and  wine  to  the  London  gro 
cer.  It  was  a  curious  result,  in  which  the  civility 
and  religion  of  England  for  a  thousand  years,  ends, 
in  denying  morals,  and  reducing  the  intellect  to  a 
sauce-pan.  The  critic  hides  his  skepticism  under 
the  English  cant  of  practical.  To  convince  the 
reason,  to  touch  the  conscience,  is  romantic  preten 
sion.  The  fine  arts  fall  to  the  ground.  Beauty, 
except  as  luxurious  commodity,  does  not  exist.  It 
is  very  certain,  I  may  say  in  passing,  that  if  Lord 
Bacon  had  been  only  the  sensualist  his  critic  pre 
tends,  he  would  never  have  acqilired  the  fame  which 
now  entitles  him  to  this  patronage.  It  is  because 
he  had  imagination,  the  leisures  of  the  spirit,  and 
basked  in  an  element  of  contemplation  out  of  all 
modern  English  atmospheric  gauges,  that  he  is 
impressive  to  the  imaginations  of  men,  and  has 
become  a  potentate  not  to  be  ignored.  §ir  David 
Brewster  sees  the  high  place  of  Bacon,  without 
finding  Newton  indebted  to  him,  and  thinks  it  a 
mistake.  Bacon  occupies  it  by  specific  gravity  or 
levity,  not  by  any  feat  he  did,  or  by  any  tutoring 
more  or 'less  of  Newton  &c.,  but  an  effect  of  the 


248  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

same  cause  which  showed  itself  more  pronounced 
afterwards  in  Hooke,  Boyle,  and  Halley. 

Coleridge,  a  catholic  mind,  with  a  hunger  foi^ 
ideas,  with  eyes  looking  before  and  after  to  thej 
highest  bards  and  sages,  and  who  wrote  and  spoke  i 
the  only  high  criticism  in  his  time,  —  is  one  of 
those  who  save  England  from  the  reproach  of  no 
longer  possessing  the  capacity  to  appreciate  what 
rarest  wit  the  island  has  yielded.     Yet  the  mis-  . 
fortune    of  his   life,   his   vast    attempts   but   most 
inadequate  performings,  failing  to  accomplish  any  , 
one  masterpiece,  seems  to  mark  the  closing  of  an 
era.     Even  in  him,  the  traditional  Englishman  was    / 
too  strong   for  the  philosopher,  and   he  fell   into 
accommodations :    and,   as    Burke   had    striven   to 
idealize  the  English  State,  so  Coleridge  (  narrowed 
his  mind '  in  the  attempt  to  reconcile  the  gothic 
rule  and  dogma  of  the  Anglican  Church,  with  eter 
nal  ideas.     But  for  Coleridge,  and  a  lurking  taci 
turn  minority,  uttering  itself  in  occasional  criticism, 
oftener  in  private  discourse,  one  would  say,  that 
in  Germany  and  in  America,  is  the  best  mind  in 
England  rightly  respected.     It  is  the  surest  sign 
of  national  decay,  when  the  Bramins  can  no  longer 
read  or  understand  the  Braminical  philosophy. 

In  the  decomposition  and  asphyxia  that  followed 


LITERATURE.  249 

all  tliis  materialism,  Carlyle  was  driven  by  his  dis 
gust  at  the  pettiness  and  the  cant,  into  the  preaching 
of  Fate.  In  comparison  with  all  this  rottenness, 
any  check,  any  cleansing,  though  by  fire,  seemed 
desirable  and  beautiful.  He  saw  little  difference  in 
the  gladiators,  or  the  "  causes  "  for  which  they 
combated  •  the  one  comfort  was,  that  they  were  all 
going  speedily  into  the  abyss  together :  And  his 
imagination,  finding  no  nutriment  in  any  creation, 
avenged  itself  by  celebrating  the  majestic  beauty 
of  the  laws  of  decay.  The  necessities  of  mental 
structure  force  all  minds  into  a  few  categories,  and 
where  impatience  of  the  tricks  of  men  makes  Nem 
esis  amiable,  and  builds  altars  to  the  negative  Deity, 
the  inevitable  recoil  is  to  heroism  or  the  gallantry 
of  the  private  heart,  which  decks  its  immolation 
with  glory,  in  the  unequal  combat  of  will  against 
fate. 

Wilkinson,  the  editor  of  Swedenborg,  the  anno- 
tator  of  Fourier,  and  the  champion  of  Hahnemann, 
has  brought  to  metaphysics  and  to  physiology  a 
native  vigor,  with  a  catholic  perception  of  relations, 
equal  to  the  highest  attempts,  and  a  rhetoric  like 
the  armory  of  the  invincible  knights  of  old.  There 
is  in  the  action  of  his  mind  a  long  Atlantic  roll 
not  known  except  in  deepest  waters,  and  only 
lacking  what  ought  to  accompany  such  powers,  a 


250  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

manifest  centrality.  If  his  mind  does  not  rest  in 
immovable  biases,  perhaps  the  orbit  is  larger,  and 
the  return  is  not  yet :  but  a  master  should  inspire 
a  confidence  that  he  will  adhere  to  his  convictions, 
and  give  his  present  studies  always  the  same  high 
place. 

It  would  be  easy  to  add  exceptions  to  the  limit 
ary  tone  of  English  thought,  and  much  more  easy 
to    adduce   examples    of   excellence    in    particular } 
veins  :   and  if,  going  out  of  the  region  of  dogma,  j 
we  pass  into  that  of  general  culture,  there  is  no 
end  to  the  graces  and    amenities,  wit,  sensibility 
and  erudition,  of  the  learned  class.      But  the  arti 
ficial  succor  which  marks  all  English  performance, 
appears  in  letters  also :   much  of  their  aesthetic  pro- 

,  duction  is  antiquarian  and  manufactured,  and 
literary  reputations  have  been  achieved  by  forcible 
men,  whose  relation  to  literature  was  purely  acci 
dental,  but  who  were  driven  by  tastes  and  modes 
they  found  in  vogue  into  their  several  careers.  So, 
at  this  moment,  every  ambitious  young  man  studies 
geology  :  so  members  of  Parliament  are  made,  and 
churchmen. 

The  bias  of  Englishmen  to  practical  skill  has  re- 

,  acted  on  the  national  mind.  They  are  incapable 
of  an  inutility,  and  respect  the  five  mechanic  pow 
ers  even  in  their  song.  The  voice  of  their  modern 


LITERATURE.  251 

muse  has  a  slight  hint  of  the  steam-whistle,  and 
the  poem  is  created  as  an  ornament  and  finish  of 
their  monarchy,  and  by  no  means  as  the  bird  of  aj 
new  morning  which  forgets  the  past  world  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  that  which  is  forming.  They 
are  with  difficulty  ideal;  they  are  the  most  con 
ditioned  men,  as  if,  having  the  best  conditions,  they 
could  not  bring  themselves  to  forfeit  them.  Every 
one  of  them  is  a  thousand  years  old,  and  lives  by 
liis  memory :  and  when  you  say  this,  they  accept 
it  as  praise. 

Nothing  comes  to  the  book-shops  but  politics, 
travels,  statistics,  tabulation,  and  engineering,  and 
even  what  is  called  philosophy  and  letters  is  me 
chanical  in  its  structure,  as  if  inspiration  had 
ceased,  as  if  no  vast  hope,  no  religion,  no  song 
of  joy,  no  wisdom,  no  analogy,  existed  any  more. 
The  tone  of  colleges,  and  of  scholars  and  of  lit 
erary  society  has  this  mortal  air.  I  seem  to  walk' 
on  a  marble  floor,  where  nothing  will  grow.  They 
exert  every  variety  of  talent  on  a  lower  ground, 
and  may  be  said  to  live  and  act  in  a  sub-mind. 
They  have  lost  all  commanding  views  in  literature, 
philosophy,  and  science.  A  good  Englishman 
shuts  himself  out  of  three  fourths  of  his  mind, 
and  confines  himself  to  one  fourth.  He  has  learn 
ing,  good  sense,  power  of  labor,  and  logic :  but  a 


252         t  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

faith  in  the  laws  of  the  mind  like  that  of  Archi 
medes  ;  a  belief  like  that  of  Euler  and  Kepler, 
that  experience  must  follow  and  not  lead  the 
laws  of  the  mind;  a  devotion  to  the  theory  of 
politics,  like  that  of  Hooker,  and  Milton,  and  Har 
rington,  the  modern  English  mind  repudiates. 

I  fear  the  same  fault  lies  in  their  science,  since 
they  have  known  how  to  make  it  repulsive,  and 
bereave  nature  of  its  charm  ;  —  though  perhaps  the 
complaint  flies  wider,  and  the  vice  attaches  to  many 
more  than  to  British  physicists.  The  eye  of  the 
naturalist  must  have  a  scope  like  nature  itself,  a 
susceptibility  to  all  impressions,  alive  to  the  heart 
as  well  as  to  the  logic  of  creation.  But  English 
science  puts  humanity  to  the  door.  It  wants  the 
connection  which  is  the  test  of  genius.  The  sci 
ence  is  false  by  not  being  poetic.  It  isolates  the 
reptile  or  mollusk  it  assumes  to  explain ;  whilst 
reptile  or  mollusk  only  exists  in  system,  in  rela 
tion.  The  poet  only  sees  it  as  an  inevitable  step 
in  the  path  of  the  Creator.  But,  in  England,  one 
hermit  finds  this  fact,  and  another  finds  that,  and 
lives  and  dies  ignorant  of  its  value.  There  are 
great  exceptions,  of  John  Hunter,  a  man  of  ideas  ; 
perhaps  of  Robert  Brown,  the  botanist ;  and  of 
Richard  Owen,  who  has  imported  into  Britain  the 
German  homologies,  and  enriched  science  with 


LITERATURE.  253 

contributions  of  his  own,  adding  sometimes  the 
divination  of  the  old  masters  to  the  unbroken  power 
of  labor  in  the  English  mind.  But  for  the  most 
part,  the  natural  science  in  England  is  out  of  its 
loyal  alliance  with  morals,  and  is  as  Void  of  imagi 
nation  and  free  play  of  thought,  as  conveyancing. 
It  stands  in  strong  contrast  with  the  genius  of  the 
Germans,  those  semi-Greeks,  who  love  analogy, 
and,  by  means  of  their  height  of  view,  preserve 
their  enthusiasm,  and  think  for  Europe. 

No  hope,  no  sublime  augury  cheers  the  student, 
no  secure  striding  from  experiment  onward  to  a 
foreseen  law,  but  only  a  casual  dipping  here  and 
there,  like  diggers  in  California  "  prospecting  for  a 
placer  "  that  will  pay.  A  horizon  of  brass  of  the 
diameter  of  his  umbrella  shuts  down  around  his 
senses.  Squalid  contentment  with  conventions,  sa 
tire  at  the  names  of  philosophy  and  religion,  paro 
chial  and  shop-till  politics,  and  idolatry  of  usage, 
betray  the  ebb  of  life  and  spirit.  As  they  trample 
on  nationalities  to  reproduce  London  and  Londoners 
in  Europe  and  Asia,  so  they  fear  the  hostility  of 
ideas,  of  poetry,  of  religion,  —  ghosts  which  they 
cannot  lay;  —  and,  having  attempted  to  domesticate 
and  dress  the  Blessed  Soul  itself  in  English  broad- 
cloth  and  gaiters,  they  are  tormented  with  fear 
that  herein  lurks  a  force  that  will  sweep  their 


254  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

system  away.      The  artists  say,  "  Nature  puts  them   | 
out ;  "  the  scholars  have  become  un-ideal.      They  j 
parry  earnest  speech  with  banter  and  levity  ;  they 
laugh    you    down,    or    they    change    the    subject. 
"  The  fact  is,'*  say  they  over  their  wine,  "  all  that 
about  liberty,  and  so  forth,  is  gone  by ;  it  won't  do 
any  longer."     The  practical  and  comfortable  op- 
press  them  with  inexorable  claims,  and  the  smallest  1  j 
fraction  of  power   remains  for  heroism  and  poetry. 
No    poet    dares    murmur    of    beauty    out    of   the 
precinct  of  his  rhymes.     No  priest  dares   hint  at 
a  Providence  which  does  not  respect  English  utility. 
The  island  is  a  roaring  volcano  of  fate,  of  material 
values,   of  tariffs,  and  laws  of  repression,  glutted 
markets  and  low  prices. 

In  the  absence  of  the  highest  aims,  of  the  pure 
love  of  knowledge,  and  the  surrender  to  nature, 
there  is  the  suppression  of  the  imagination,  the  pri- 
apism  of  the  senses  and  the  understanding;  we  have 
the  factitious  instead  of  the  natural ;  tasteless  ex 
pense,  arts  of  comfort,  and  the  rewarding  as  an 
illustrious  inventor  whosoever  will  contrive  one 
impediment  more  to  interpose  between  the  man  and 
his  objects. 

Thusapoetry  is  degraded,  and  made  ornamental. 
Pope  and  his  school  wrote  poetry  fit  to  put  round 
frosted  cake.  What  did  Walter  Scott  write  with- 


LITERATURE.  255 

out  stint  ?  a  rhymed  traveller's  guide  to  Scotland.  , 
And  the  libraries   of  verses   they  print  have  this  ( 
Birrringham   character.     How   many   volumes    of 
well -bred  metre  we  must  gingle   through,  before 
we  can  be  filled,  taught,  renewed!     We  want  the\ 
miraculous  ;  the  beauty  which  we  can  manufacture 
at  no  mill,  —  can  give  no  account  of;  the  beauty? 
of  Avhich  Chaucer  and  Chapman   had   the    secretA 
The  poetry  of  course  is  low  and  prosaic ;  only  now! 
and  then,  as  in  Wordsworth,  conscientious  ;  or  in 
Byron,  passional ;  or  in  Tennyson,  factitious.      But  > 
if  I  should  count  the  poets  who  have  contributed  to 
the  bible  of  existing  England  sentences  of  guidance 
and  consolation  which  are  still  glowing  and  effec 
tive,  —  how  few  !    Shall  I  find  my  heavenly  bread 
in  the  reigning  poets  ?     Where  is  great  design  in 
modern  English  poetry?     The  English  have  lost 
sight  of  the  fact  that  poetry  exists   to    speak  the 
spiritual  law,  and  that  no  wealth  of  description  or 
of  fancy  is  yet  essentially  new,  and  out  of  the  limits 
of  prose,  until  this  condition  is  reached.      Therefore 
the  grave  old  poets,  like  the  Greek  artists,  heeded 
their  designs,  and  less  considered  the  finish.     It 
was  their  office  to  lead  to  the  divine  sources,  out  of 
which  all  this,  and  much  more,  readily  springs ; 
and,  if  this  religion  is  in  the  poetry,  it  raises  us  to 
some  purpose,  and  we  can  well  afford  some  staidness, 
or  hardness,  or  want  of  popular  tune  in  the  verses. 


256  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

The  exceptional  fact  of  the  period  is  the  genius    ' 
of  Wordsworth.     He   had  no   master  but  nature 
and  solitude.      "  He  wrote  a  poem/'  says  Landor, 
"  without  the  aid  of  war."     His  verse  is  the  voice 
of  sanity  in  a  worldly  and  ambitious   age.      One  ' 
regrets  that  his  temperament  was  not  more  liquid  / 
and  musical.      He  has  written  longer  than  he  wasj< 
inspired.     But  for  the  rest,  he  has  no  competitor.  ' 

Tennyson  is  endowed  precisely  in  points  where  f- 
Wordsworth  wanted.  There  is  no  finer  ear,  nor 
more  command  of  the  keys  of  language.  Color, 
like  the  dawn,  flows  over  the  horizon  from  his 
pencil,  in  waves  so  rich  that  we  do  not  miss  the 
central  form.  Through  all  his  refinements,  too, 
he  has  reached  the  public,  —  a  certificate  of  good 
sense  and  general  power,  since  he  who  aspires  to 
be  the  English  poet  must  be  as  large  as  London, 
not  in  the  same  kind  as  London,  but  in  his  own 
kind.  But  he  wants  a  subject,  and  climbs  no 
mount  of  vision  to  bring  its  secrets  to  the  people. 
He  contents  himself  with  describing  the  Englishman 
as  he  is,  and  proposes  no  better.  There  are  all 
degrees  in  poetry,  and  we  must  be  thankful  for 
every  beautiful  talent.  But  it  is  only  a  first  suc 
cess,  when  the  ear  is  gained.  The  best  office  of 
the  best  poets  has  been  to  show  how  low  and  un 
inspired  was  their  general  style,  and  that  only 
once  or  twice  they  have  struck  the  high  chord. 


LITERATURE.  257 

That  expansiveness  which  is  the  essence  of  the 
poetic  element,  they  have  not.  It  was  no  Oxonian, 
but  Hafiz,  who  said,  "Let  us  be  crowned  with  roses, 
let  us  drink  wine,  and  break  up  the  tiresome  old 
rdof  of  heaven  into  new  forms."  A  stanza  of  the 
song  of  nature  the  Oxonian  has  no  ear  for,  and 
he  does  not  value  the  salient  and  curative  influ 
ence  of  intellectual  action,  studious  of  truth,  with 
out  a  by-end. 

By  the  law  of  contraries,  I  look  for  an  irresisti 
ble  taste  for  Orientalism  in  Britain.  For  a  self- 
conceited  modish  life,  made  up  of  trifles,  clinging 
to  a  corporeal  civilization,  hating  ideas,  there  is 
no  remedy  like  the  Oriental  largeness.  That\ 
astonishes  and  disconcerts  English  decorum.  For  / 
once  there  is  thunder  it  never  heard,  light  it  never 
saw,  and  power  which  trifles  with  time  and  space. 
I  am  not  surprised,  then,  to  find  an  Englishman  like 
Warren  Hastings,  who  had  been  struck  with  the 
grand  style  of  thinking  in  the  Indian  writings, 
deprecating  the  prejudices  of  his  countrymen^ 
while  offering  them  a  translation  of  the  Bhagvat.j 
"  Might  I,  an  unlettered  man,  venture  to  pre 
scribe  bounds  to  the  latitude  of  criticism,  I  should 
exclude,  in  estimating  the  merit  of  such  a  produc 
tion,  all  rules  drawn  from  the  ancient  or  modern 
literature  of  Europe,  all  references  to  such  senti- 
22* 


258  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

ments  or  manners  as  are  become  the  standards  of 
propriety  for  opinion  and  action  in  our  own  modes, 
and,  equally,  all  appeals  to  our  revealed  tenets 
of  religion  and  moral  duty."*  He  goes  on  to  be 
speak  indulgence  to  "  ornaments  of  fancy  unsuited 
to  our  taste,  and  passages  elevated  to  a  tract  of 
sublimity  into  which  our  habits  of  judgment  will 
find  it  difficult  to  pursue  them." 

Meantime,  I  know  that  a  retrieving  power  lies 
in  the  English  race,  which  seems  to  make  any 
recoil  possible ;  in  other  words,  there  is  at  all 
times  a  minority  of  profound  minds  existing  in  the 
nation,  capable  of  appreciating  every  soaring  of 
intellect  and  every  hint  of  tendency.  While  the 
constructive  talent  seems  dwarfed  and  superficial, 
the  criticism  is  often  in  the  noblest  tone,  and  sug 
gests  the  presence  of  the  invisible  gods.  I  can 
well  believe  what  I  have  often  heard,  that  there  are 
two  nations  in  England  ;  but  it  is  not  the  Poor  and 
the  Rich ;  nor  is  it  the  Normans  and  Saxons ;  nor 
the  Celt  and  the  Goth.  These  are  each  always 
becoming  the  other ;  for  Robert  Owen  does  not 
exaggerate  the  power  of  circumstance.  But  the 
two  complexions,  or  two  styles  of  mind,  —  the 
perceptive  class,  and  the  practical  finality  class,  — 

*  Preface  to  Wilkins's  Translation  of  the  Bhagvat  Geeta. 


LITERATURE.  259 

are    ever    in    counterpoise,    interacting    mutually , 
one,  in   hopeless  minorities ;    the  other,  in    huge 
masses ;  one  studious,  contemplative,  experiment 
ing  ;    the    other,    the    ungrateful    pupil,    scornful 
of  the  source,  whilst  availing  itself  of  the  knowl 
edge  for  gain ;  these  two  nations,  of  genius  and  of  I 
animal  force,  though  the  first  consist  of  only  a  dozen  • 
souls,  and  the  second  of  twenty  millions,  forever 
by  their  discord  and  their  accord  yield  the  power 
of  the  English  State. 


^    * 


CHAPTER     XV. 

THE   "TIMES." 

THE  power  of  the  newspaper  is  familiar  in 
America,  and  in  accordance  with  our  political  sys 
tem.  In  England,  it  stands  in  antagonism  with 
the  feudal  institutions,  and  it  is  all  the  more  benefi 
cent  succor  against  the  secretive  tendencies  of  a 
monarchy.  The  celebrated  Lord  Somers  "  knew 
of  no  good  law  proposed  and  passed  in  his  time, 
to  which  the  public  papers  had  not  directed  his 
attention."  There  is  no  corner  and  no  night.  A 
relentless  inquisition  drags  every  secret  to  the  day, 
turns  the  glare  of  this  solar  microscope  on  every 
malfaisance,  so  as  to  make  the  public  a  more  terri 
ble  spy  than  any  foreigner ;  and  no  weakness  can 
be  taken  advantage  of  by  an  enemy,  since  the 
whole  people  are  already  forewarned.  Thus  Eng 
land  rids  herself  of  those  incrustations  which  have 
been  the  ruin  of  old  states.  Of  course,  this  in 
spection  is  feared.  No  antique  privilege,  no  com 
fortable  monopoly,  but  sees  surely  that  its  days 

(260) 


THE  "TIMES."  261 

are  counted  ;  the  people  are  familiarized  with  the 
reason  of  reform,  and,  one  by  one,  take  away  every 
argument  of  the  obstructives.  tf  So  your  grace 
likes  the  comfort  of  reading  the  newspapers," 
said  Lord  Mansfield  to  the  Duke  of  Northumber 
land  ;  "  mark  my  words  ;  you  and  I  shall  not  live/ 
to  see  it,  but  this  young  gentleman  (Lord  Eldon)l 
may,  or  it  may  be  a  little  later  j  but  a  little  sooner 
or  later,  these  newspapers  will  most  assuredly  write 
the  dukes  of  Northumberland  out  of  their  titles 
and  possessions,  and  the  country  out  of  its  king." 
The  tendency  in  England  towards  social  and  polit-'jf 
ical  institutions  like  those  of  America,  is  inevita-' 
ble,  and  the  ability  of  its  journals  is  the  driving 
force. 

England  is  full  of  manly,  clever,  well-bred  men 
who  possess  the  talent  of  writing  off-hand  pungent 
paragraphs,  expressing  with  clearness  and  courage 
their  opinion  on  any  person  or  performance.  Val 
uable  or  not,  it  is  a  skill  that  is  rarely  found,  out  of 
the  English  journals.  The  English  do  this,  as  they 
write  poetry,  as  they  ride  and  box,  by  being  edu 
cated  to  it.  Hundreds  of  clever  Praeds,  and  Freres, 
and  Froudes,  and  Hoods,  and  Hooks,  and  Maginns, 
and  Mills,  and  Macaulays,  make  poems,  or  short 
essays  for  a  journal,  as  they  make  speeches  in  Par 
liament  and  on  the  hustings,  or,  as  they  shoot  and 


262  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

ride.  It  is  a  quite  accidental  and  arbitrary  direc 
tion  of  their  general  ability.  Rude  health  and 
spirits,  an  Oxford  education,  and  the  habits  of  so 
ciety  are  implied,  but  not  a  ray  of  genius.  It 
comes  of  the  crowded  state  of  the  professions,  the 
violent  interest  which  all  men  take  in  politics,  the 
facility  of  experimenting  in  the  journals,  and  high 
pay. 

The  most  conspicuous  result  of  this  talent  is 
the  "  Times  "  newspaper.  No  power  in  England 
is  more  felt,  more  feared,  or  more  obeyed.  What 
youreaoT  in  thenmoTrlmg  in  That  journal,  you  shall 
hear  in  the  evening  in  all  society.  It  has  ears 
every  where,  and  its  information  is  earliest,  com- 
pletest,  and  surest.  It  has  risen,  year  by  year,  and 
victory  by  victory,  to  its  present  authority.  I 
asked  one  of  its  old  contributors,  whether  it  had 
once  been  abler  than  it  is  now  ?  "  Never,"  he 
said  ;  "  these  are  its  palmiest  days."  It  has  shown 
those  qualities  which  are  dear  to  Englishmen,  un 
flinching  adherence  to  its  objects,  prodigal  intellec 
tual  ability,  and  a  towering  assurance,  backed  by 
the  perfect  organization  in  its  printing-house,  and 
its  world-wide  net-work  of  correspondence  and  re 
ports.  It  has  its  own  history  and  famous  trophies. 
In  1820,  it  adopted  the  cause  of  Queen  Caroline, 
and  carried  it  against  the  king.  It  adopted  a  poor- 


THE    "TIMES."  263 

law  system,  and  almost  alone  lifted  it  through. 
When  Lord  Brougham  was  in  power,  it  decided 
against  him,  and  pulled  him  down.  It  declared 
war  against  Ireland,  and  conquered  it.  It  adopted 
the  League  against  the  Corn  Laws,  and,  when 
Cobden  had  begun  to  despair,  it  announced  his 
triumph.  It  denounced  and  discredited  the  French 
Republic  of  1848,  and  checked  every  sympathy 
with  it  in  England,  until  it  had  enrolled  200,000 
special  constables  to  watch  the  Chartists,  and  make 
them  ridiculous  on  the  10th  April.  It  first  de 
nounced  and  then  adopted  the  new  French  Empire, 
and  urged  the  French  Alliance  and  its  results.  It 
has  entered  into  each  municipal,  literary,  and  so 
cial  question,  almost  with  a  controlling  voice.  It 
has  done  bold  and  seasonable  service  in  exposing 
frauds  which  threatened  the  commercial  communi 
ty.  Meantime,  it  attacks  its  rivals  by  perfecting 
its  printing  machinery,  and  will  drive  them  out  of 
circulation :  for  the  only  limit  to  the  circulation 
of  the  "  Times  "  is  the  impossibility  of  printing 
co'pies  fast  enough  ;  since  a  daily  paper  can  only 
be  new  and  seasonable  for  a  few  hours.  It  will 
kill  all  but  that  paper  which  is  diametrically  in 
opposition ;  since  many  papers,  first  and  last,  have 
lived  by  their  attacks  on  the  leading  journal. 

The  late  Mr.  Walter  was  printer  of  the  "  Times/' 


264 


ENGLISH    TRAITS. 


and  had  gradually  arranged  the  whole  materiel  of 
it  in  perfect  system.  It  is  told,  that  when  he  de 
manded  a  small  share  in  the  proprietary,  and  was 
refused,  he  said,  "  As  you  please,  gentlemen  ;  and 
you  may  take  away  the  'Times  '  from  this  office, 
when  you  will ;  I  shall  publish  the  ( New 
Times,'  next  Monday  morning."  The  proprietors, 
who  had  already  complained  that  his  charges  for 
printing  were  excessive,  found  that  they  were  in 
his  power,  and  gave  him  whatever  he  wished. 

I  went  one  day  with  a  good  friend  to  the  "  Times  " 
office,  which  was  entered  through  a  pretty  garden- 
yard,  in  Printing-House  Square.  We  walked  with 
some  circumspection,  as  if  we  were  entering  a 
powder-mill ;  but  the  door  was  opened  by  a  mild 
old  woman.,  and,  by  dint  of  some  transmission  of 
cards,  we  were  at  last  conducted  into  the  parlor  of 
Mr.  Morris,  a  very  gentle  person,  with  no  hostile 
appearances.  The  statistics  are  now  quite  out  of 
date,  but  I  remember  he  told  us  that  the  daily 
printing  was  then  35,000  copies  ;  that  on  the  1st 
March,  1848,  the  greatest  number  ever  printed, — 
54,000  were  issued ;  that,  since  February,  the 
daily  circulation  had  increased  by  8000  copies. 
The  old  press  they  were  then  using  printed  five  or 
six  thousand  sheets  per  hour ;  the  new  machine, 
for  which  they  were  then  building  an  engine, 


THE  "TIMES."  265 

would  print  twelve  thousand  per  hour.  Our  enter 
tainer  confided  us  to  a  courteous  assistant  to  show 
us  the  establishment,  in  which,  I  think,  they  em 
ployed  a  hundred  and  twenty  men.  I  remember, 
I  saw  the  reporters'  room,  in  which  they  redact 
their  hasty  stenographs,  but  the  editor's  room,  and 
who  is  in  it,  I  did  not  see,  though  I  shared  the  curi 
osity  of  mankind  respecting  it. 

The  staff  of  the  "  Times  "  has  always  been  made 
up  of  able  men.  Old  Walter,  Sterling,  Bacon, 
Barnes,  Alsiger,  Horace  Twiss,  Jones  Loyd,  John 
Oxenford,  Mr.  Mosely,  Mr.  Bailey,  have  contribut 
ed  to  its  renown  in  their  special  departments.  But 
it  has  never  wanted  the  first  pens  for  occasional 
assistance.  Its  private  information  is  inexplicable, 
and  recalls  the  stories  of  Fouche's  police,  whose 
omniscience  made  it  believed  that  the  Empress  Jo 
sephine  must  be  in  his  pay.  It  has  mercantile  and 
political  correspondents  in  every  foreign  city ; 
and  its  expresses  outrun  the  despatches  of  the  gov 
ernment.  One  hears  anecdotes  of  the  rise  of  its 
servants,  as  of  the  functionaries  of  the  India  House. 
I  was  told  of  the  dexterity  of  one  of  its  reporters, 
who,  finding  himself,  on  one  occasion,  where  the 
magistrates  had  strictly  forbidden  reporters,  put 
his  hands  into  his  coat-pocket,  and  with  pencil  in 
one  hand,  and  tablet  in  the  other,  did  his  work. 
83 


2C6  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

The  influence  of  this  journal  is  a  recognized 
power  in  Europe,  and,  of  course,  none  is  more 
conscious  of  it  than  its  conductors.  The  tone  of 
its  articles  has  often  been  the  occasion  of  comment 
from  the  official  organs  of  the  continental  courts, 
and  sometimes  the  ground  of  diplomatic  complaint. 
What  would  the  "  Times  "  say  ?  is  a  terror  in  Paris, 
in  Berlin,  in  Vienna,  in  Copenhagen,  and  in  Ne- 
paul.  Its  consummate  discretion  and  success  ex 
hibit  the  English  skill  of  combination.  The  daily 
paper  is  the  work  of  many  hands,  chiefly,  it  is  said, 
of  young  men  recently  from  the  University,  and 
perhaps  reading  law  in  chambers  in  London. 
Hence  the  academic  elegance,  and  classic  allusion, 
which  adorn  its  columns.  Hence,  too,  the  heat 
and  gallantry  of  its  onset,  But  the  steadiness  of 
the  aim  suggests  the  belief  that  this  fire  is  directed 
and  fed  by  older  engineers  ;  as  if  persons  of  exact  in 
formation,  and  with  settled  views  of  policy,  supplied 
the  writers  with  the  basis  of  fact,  and  the  object  to 
be  attained,  and  availed  themselves  of  their  younger 
energy  and  eloquence  to  plead  the  cause.  Both 
the  council  and  the  executive  departments  gain  by 
this  division.  Of  two  men  of  equal  ability,  the 
one  who  does  not  write,  but  keeps  his  eye  on  the 
course  of  public  affairs,  will  have  the  higher  judi 
cial  wisdom.  But  the  parts  are  kept  in  concert ; 


THE  "TIMES."  267 

all  the  articles  appear  to  proceed  from  a  single  will. 
The  <e  Times  "  never  disapproves  of  what  itself  has 
said,  or  cripples  itself  by  apology  for  the  absence 
of  the  editor,  or  the  indiscretion  of  him  who  held 
the  pen.  It  speaks  out  bluff  and  bold,  and  sticks 
to  what  it  says.  It  draws  from  any  number  of 
learned  and  skilful  contributors ;  but  a  more  learned 
and  skilful  person  supervises,  corrects,  and  coordi 
nates.  Of  this  closet,  the  secret  does  not  transpire. 
No  writer  is  suffered  to  claim  the  authorship  of 
any  paper  ;  every  thing  good,  from  whatever  quar 
ter,  comes  out  editorially;  and  thus,  by  making 
the  paper  every  thing,  and  those  who  write  it  noth 
ing,  the  character  and  the  awe  of  the  journal  gain. 
The  English  like  it  for  its  complete  information. 
A  statement  of  fact  in  the  "  Times  "  is  as  reliable 

V 

as  a  citation  from  Hansard.  Then,  they  like  its 
independence ;  they  do  not  know,  when  they  take 
it  up,  what  their  paper  is  going  to  say :  but,  above 
all,  for  the  nationality  and  confidence  of  its  tone. 
It  thinks  for  them  all ;  it  is  their  understanding 
and  day's  ideal  daguerreotyped.  When  I  see  them 
reading  its  columns,  they  seem  to  me  becoming 
every  moment  more  British.  It  has  the  national 
courage,  not  rash  and  petulant,  but  considerate  and 
determined.  No  dignity  or  wealth  is  a  shield  from 
its  assault.  It  attacks  a  duke  as  readily  as  a  police- 


268  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

man,  and  with  the  most  provoking  airs  of  conde 
scension.  It  makes  rude  work  with  the  Board  of 
Admiralty.  The  Bench  of  Bishops  is  still  less 
safe.  One  bishop  fares  badly  for  his  rapacity,  and 
another  for  his  bigotry,  and  a  third  for  his  court 
liness.  It  addresses  occasionally  a  hint  to  Maj 
esty  itself,  and  sometimes  a  hint  which  is  taken. 
There  is  an  air  of  freedom  even  in  their  advertis 
ing  columns,  which  speaks  well  for  England  to  a 
foreigner.  On  the  days  when  I  arrived  in  London 
in  1847,  I  read  among  the  daily  announcements, 
one  offering  a  reward  of  fifty  pounds  to  any 
person  who  would  put  a  nobleman,  described  by 
name  and  title,  late  a  member  of  Parliament,  into 
any  county  jail  in  England,  he  having  been  con 
victed  of  obtaining  money  under  false  pretences. 

Was  never  such  arrogancy  as  the  tone  of  this 
paper.  Every  slip  of  an  Oxonian  or  Cantabrigian 
who  writes  his  first  leader,  assumes  that  we  sub 
dued  the  earth  before  we  sat  down  to  write  this 
particular  "  Times."  One  would  think,  the  world 
was  on  its  knees  to  the  "  Times  "  Office,  for  its 
daily  breakfast.  But  this  arrogance  is  calculated. 
Who  would  care  for  it,  if  it  "  surmised,"  or 
"  dared  to  confess,"  or  "  ventured  to  predict,"  &c. 
No ;  it  is  so,  and  so  it  shall  be. 

The  morality  and   patriotism  of  the    "  Times  " 


THE    "TIMES."  269 

claims  only  to  be  representative,  and  by  no  means 
ideal.  It  gives  the  argument,  not  of  the  majority, 
but  of  the  commanding  class.  Its  editors  know 
better  than  to  defend  Russia,  or  Austria,  or  Eng 
lish  vested  rights,  on  abstract  grounds.  But  they 
give  a  voice  to  the  class  who,  at  the  moment,  take 
the  lead ;  and  they  have  an  instinct  for  finding 
where  the  power  now  lies,  which  is  eternally  shift 
ing  its  banks.  Sympathizing  with,  and  speaking 
for  the  class  that  rules  the  hour,  yet,  being  apprised 
of  every  ground-swell,  every  Chartist  resolution, 
every  Church  squabble,  every  strike  in  the  mills, 
they  detect  the  first  tremblings  of  change.  They 
watch  the  hard  and  bitter  struggles  of  the  authors 
of  each  liberal  movement,  year  by  year,  -^—  watch 
ing  them  only  to  taunt  and  obstruct  them,  —  until, 
at  last,  when  they  see  that  these  have  established 
their  fact,  that  power  is  on  the  point  of  passing  to 
them,  —  they  strike  in,  with  the  voice  of  a  mon 
arch,  astonish  those  whom  they  succor,  as  much  as 
those  whom  they  desert,  and  make  victory  sure. 
Of  course,  the  aspirants  see  that  the  "  Times  "  is  one 
of  the  goods  of  fortune,  not  to  be  won  but  by 
winning  their  cause. 

"Punch"  is  equally  an  expression  of  English 
good  sense,  as  the  "  London  Times."  It  is  the  comic 
vt :i  .sion  of  the  same  sense.  Many  of  its  caricatures 


270  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

are  equal  to  the  best  pamphlets,  and  will  convey 
to  the  eye  in  an  instant  the  popular  view  which 
was  taken  of  each  turn  of  public  affairs.  Its 
sketches  are  usually  made  by  masterly  hands,  and 
sometimes  with  genius  ;  the  delight  of  every  class, 
because  uniformly  guided  by  that  taste  which  is 
tyrannical  in  England.  It  is  a  new  trait  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  that  the  wit  and  humor  of 
England,  as  in  Punch,  so  in  the  humorists,  Jer- 
rold,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Hood,  have  taken  the 
direction  of  humanity  and  freedom. 

The  "Times,"  like  every  important  institution, 
shows  the  way  to  a  better.  It  is  a  living  index  of 
the  colossal  British  power.  Its  existence  honors 
the  people  who  dare  to  print  all  they  know,  dare 
to  know  all  the  facts,  and  do  not  wish  to  be  flat 
tered  by  hiding  the  extent  of  the  public  disaster. 
There  is  always  safety  in  valor.  I  wish  I  could 
add,  that  this  journal  aspired  to  deserve  the  power 
it  wields,  by  guidance  of  the  public  sentiment  to 
the  right.  It  is  usually  pretended,  in  Parliament 
ard  elsewhere,  that  the  English  press  has  a  high 
tone, —  which  it  has  not.  It  has  an  imperial  tone, 
as  of  a  powerful  and  independent  nation.  But  as; 
with  other  empires,  its  tone  is  prone  to  be  official, 
and  even  officinal.  The  "  Times  "  shares  all  the 
limitations  of  the  governing  classes,  and  wishes 


THE  "TIMES."  27  j 

never  to  be  in  a  minority.  If  only  it  dared  to 
cleave  to  the  right,  to  show  the  right  to  be  the 
only  expedient,  and  feed  its  batteries  from  the 
central  heart  of  humanity,  it  might  not  have  so 
many  men  of  rank  among  its  contributors,  but 
genius  would  be  its  cordial  and  invincible  ally ;  it 
might  now  and  then  bear  the  brunt  of  formidable 
combinations,  but  no  journal  is  ruined  by  wise 
courage.  It  would  be  the  natural  leader  of  British 
reform ;  its  proud  function,  that  of  being  the  voice 
of  Europe,  the  defender  of  the  exile  and  patriot 
against  despots,  would  be  more  effectually  dis- ; 
charged ;  it  would  have  the  authority  which  is 
claimed  for  that  dream  of  good  men  not  yet  come 
to  pass,  an  International  Congress ;  and  the  least 
of  its  victories  would  be  to  give  to  England  a  new 
millennium  of  beneficent  power. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

STONEHENGE. 

IT  had  been  agreed  between  my  friend  Mr.  C, 
and  me,  that  before  I  left  England,  we  should 
make  an  excursion  together  to  Stonehenge,  which 
neither  of  us  had  seen;  and  the  project  pleased 
my  fancy  with  the  double  attraction  of  the  monu 
ment  and  the  companion.  It  seemed  a  bringing 
together  of  extreme  points,  to  visit  the  oldest  reli 
gious  monument  in  Britain,  in  company  with  her 
latest  thinker,  and  one  whose  influence  may  be 
traced  in  every  contemporary  book.  I  was  glad  to 
sum  up  a  little  my  experiences,  and  to  exchange 
a  few  reasonable  words  on  the  aspects  of  England, 
with  a  man  on  whose  genius  I  set  a  very  high 
value,  and  who  had  as  much  penetration,  and  as 
severe  a  theory  of  duty,  as  any  person  in  it.  On 
Friday,  7th  July,  we  took  the  South  "Western 
Railway  through  Hampshire  to  Salisbury,  where 
we  found  a  carriage  to  convey  us  to  Amesbury. 
The  fine  weather  and  my  friend's  local  knowledge 

(272) 


STONEHENGE.  273 

of  Hampshire,  in  which,  he  is  wont  to  spend  a  part 
of  every  summer,  made  the  way  short.  There  was 
much  to  say,  too,  of  the  travelling  Americans,  and 
their  usual  objects  in  London.  I  thought  it  natu 
ral,  that  they  should  give  some  time  to  works  of 
art  collected  here,  which  they  cannot  find  at  home,, 
and  a  little  to  scientific  clubs  and  museums,  which, 
at  this  moment,  make  London  very  attractive. 
But  my  philosopher  was  not  contented.  Art  and 
•  high  art '  is  a  favorite  target  for  his  wit.  "  Yes, 
Kunst  is  a  great  delusion,  and  Goethe  and  Schiller 
wasted  a  great  deal  of  good  time  on  it :  "  —  and  he 
thinks  he  discovers  that  old  Goethe  found  this  out, 
and,  in  his  later  writings,  changed  his  tone.  As 
soon  as  men  begin  to  talk  of  art,  architecture,  and 
antiquities,  nothing  good  comes  of  it.  He  wishes 
to  go  through  the  British  Museum  in  silence,  and 
thinks  a  sincere  man  will  see  something,  and  say 
nothing.  In  these  days,  he  thought,  it  would  be 
come  an  architect  to  consult  only  the  grim  neces 
sity,  and  say,  f  I  can  build  you  a  coffin  for  such 
dead  persons  as  you  are,  and  for  such  dead  pur 
poses  as  you  have,  but  you  shall  have  no  ornament.' 
For  the  science,  he  had,  if  possible,  even  less  tol 
erance,  and  compared  the  savans  of  Somerset 
House  to  the  boy  who  asked  Confucius  "how 
many  stars  in  the  sky  ?"  Confucius  replied,  "he 


274  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

minded  things  near  him : "  then  said  the  boy> 
"  how  many  hairs  are  there  in  your  eyebrows  ?  " 
Confucius  said,  "  he  didn't  know  and  didn't  care." 

Still  speaking  of  the  Americans,  C.  complained 
that  they  dislike  the  coldness  and  exclusiveness  of 
the  English,  and  run  away  to  France,  and  go  with 
their  countrymen,  and  are  amused,  instead  of  man 
fully  staying  in  London,  and  confronting  English 
men,  and  acquiring  their  culture,  who  really  have 
much  to  teach  them. 

I  told  C.  that  I  was  easily  dazzled,  and  was  ac 
customed  to  concede  readily  all  that  an  English 
man  would  ask ;  I  saw  everywhere  in  the  country 
proofs  of  sense  and  spirit,  and  success  of  every 
sort :  I  like  the  people :  they  are  as  good  as  they 
are  handsome ;  they  have  everything,  and  can  do 
everything  :  but  meantime,  I  surely  know,  that,  as 
soon  as  I  return  to  Massachusetts,  I  shall  lapse  at 
once  into  the  feeling,  which  the  geography  of 
America  inevitably  inspires,  that  we  play  the  game 
with  immense  advantage  ;  that  there  and  not  here 
is  the  seat  and  centre  of  the  British  race ;  and  that 
no  skill  or  activity  can  long  compete  with  the  pro 
digious  natural  advantages  of  that  country,  in  the 
hands  of  the  same  race ;  and  that  England,  an  old 
and  exhausted  island,  must  one  day  be  contented, 
like  other  parents,  to  be  strong  only  in  her  chil- 


STONEHENGE.  275 

dren.  But  this  was  a  proposition  which  no  Eng 
lishman  of  whatever  condition  can  easily  entertain. 
We  left  the  train  at  Salisbury,  and  took  a  car 
riage  to  Amesbury,  passing  by  Old  Sarum,  a  bare, 
treeless  hill,  once  containing  the  town  which  sent 
two  members  to  Parliament,  —  now,  not  a  hut ;  — 
and,  arriving  at  Amesbury,  stopped  at  the  George 
Inn.  After  dinner,  we  walked  to  Salisbury  Plain. 
On  the  broad  downs,  under  the  gray  sky,  not  a 
house  was  visible,  nothing  but  Stonehenge,  which 
looked  like  a  group  of  brown  dwarfs  in  the  wide 
expanse,  —  Stonehenge  and  the  barrows,  —  which  :- 
rose  like  green  bosses  about  the  plain,  and  a  few 
hayricks.  On  the  top  of  a  mountain,  the  old 
temple  would  not  be  more  impressive.  Far  and  J 
wide  a  few  shepherds  with  their  flocks  sprinkled 
the  plain,  and  a  bagman  drove  along  the  road. 
It  looked  as  if  the  wide  margin  given  in  this 
crowded  isle  to  this  primeval  temple  were  accorded 
by  the  veneration  of  the  British  race  to  the  old 
egg  out  of  which  all  their  ecclesiastical  structures 
and  history  had  proceeded.  Stonehenge  is  a  cir 
cular  colonnade  with  a  diameter  of  a  hundred  feet, 
and  enclosing  a  second  and  a  third  colonnade  with 
in.  We  walked  round  the  stones,  and  clambered 
over  them,  to  wont  ourselves  with  their  strange 
aspect  and  groupings,  and  found  a  nook  sheltered 
from  the  wind  among  them,  where  C.'  lighted  his 


276  ENGLISH    TU.UTiS. 

cigar.  It  was  pleasant  to  see,  that,  just  this  sim 
plest  of  all  simple  structures,  —  two  upright  stones 
and  a  lintel  laid  across,  —  had  long  outstood  all 
later  churches,  and  all  history,  and  were  like  what 
is  most  permanent  on  the  face  of  the  planet :  these, 
and  the  barrows,  —  mere  mounds,  (of  which  there 
are  a  hundred  and  sixty  within  a  circle  of  three 
miles  about  Stonehenge,)  like  the  same  mound  on 
the  plain  of  Troy,  which  still  makes  good  to  the 
passing  mariner  on  Hellespont,  the  vaunt  of  Ho 
mer  and  the  fame  of  Achilles.  Within  the  enclo 
sure,  grow  buttercups,  nettles,  and,  all  around, 
wild  thyme,  daisy,  meadowsweet,  goldenrod,  this 
tle,  and  the  carpeting  grass.  Over  us,  larks  were 
soaring  and  singing,  —  as  my  friend  said,  "  the 
larks  which  were  hatched  last  year,  and  the  wind 
which  was  hatched  many  thousand  years  ago," 
We  counted  and  measured  by  paces  the  biggest 
stones,  and  soon  knew  as  much  as  any  man  can 
suddenly  know  of  the  inscrutable  temple.  There^ 
are  ninety-four  stones,  and  there  were  once  prob 
ably  one  hundred  and  sixty.  The  temple  is  circu 
lar,  and  uncovered,  and  the  situation  fixed  astro 
nomically, —  the  grand  entrances  here,  and  at 
Abury,  being  placed  exactly  northeast,  "  as  all  the 
gates  of  the  old  cavern  temples  are."  How  came 
the  stones  here  ?  for  these  sarsens  or  Druidical 


STONEIIENGE.  277 

sandstones.,  are  not  found  in  this  neighborhood. 
The  sacrificial  stone,  as  it  is  called,  is  the  only  one 
in  all  these  blocks,  that  can  resist  the  action  of 
fire,  and  as  I  read  in  the  books,  must  have  been 
brought  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles. 

On  almost  every  stone  we  found  the  marks  of 
the  mineralogist's  hammer  and  chisel.  The  nine 
teen  smaller  stones  of  the  inner  circle  are  of  gran 
ite.  I,  who  had  just  come  from  Professor  Sedg- 
wick's  Cambridge  Museum  of  megatheria  and 
mastodons,  was  ready  to  maintain  that  some  clev 
erer  elephants  or  mylodonta  had  borne  off  and  laid 
these  rocks  one  on  another.  Only  the  good  beasts 
must  have  known  how  to  cut  a  well- wrought  tenon 
and  mortise,  and  to  smooth  the  surface  of  some  of 
the  stones.  The  chief  mystery  is,  that  any  mys- ; 
tery  should  have  been  allowed  to  settle  on  so  re 
markable  a  monument,  in  a  country  on  which  all 
the  muses  have  kept  their  eyes  now  for  eighteen 
hundred  years.  We  are  not  yet  too  late  to  learn 
much  more  than  is  known  of  this  structure.  Some 
diligent  Fellowes  or  Layard  will  arrive,  stone  by 
stone,  at  the  whole  history,  by  that  exhaustive 
British  sense  and  perseverance,  so  whimsical  in  its 
choice  of  objects,  which  leaves  its  own  Stonehenge 
or  Choir  Gaur  to  the  rabbits,  whilst  it  opens  pyr 
amids,  and  uncovers  Nineveh.  Stonehenge,  in 
04 


278  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

virtue  of  the  simplicity  of  its  plan,  and  its  good 
preservation,  is  as  if  new  and  recent ;  and,  a  thou 
sand  years  hence,  men  will  thank  this  age  for  the 
accurate  history  it  will  yet  eliminate.  We  walked 
in  and  out,  and  took  again  and  again  a  fresh  look 
at  the  uncanny  stones.  The  old  sphinx  put  our 
petty  differences  of  nationality  out  of  sight.  To 
these  conscious  stones  we  two  pilgrims  were  alike 
known  and  near.  We  could  equally  well  revere 
their  old  British  meaning.  My  philosopher  was 
subdued  and  gentle.  In  this  quiet  house  of  des 
tiny,  he  happened  to  say,  "  I  plant  cypresses  wher 
ever  I  go,  and  if  I  am  in  search  of  pain,  I  cannot 
go  wrong."  The  spot,  the  gray  blocks,  and  their, 
rude  order,  which  refuses  to  be  disposed  of,  sug 
gested  to  him  the  flight  of  ages,  and  the  succession 
of  religions.  The  old  times  of  England  impress 
C.  much :  he  reads  little,  he  says,  in  these  last 
years,  but  "  Ada  Sanctorum"  the  fifty-three  vol 
umes  of  which  are  in  the  London  Library.  He 
finds  all  English  history  therein.  He  can  see,  as 
he  reads,  the  old  saint  of  lona  sitting  there,  and 
writing,  a  man  to  men.  The  Ada  Sanctorum 
show  plainly  that  the  men  of  those  times  believed 
in  God,  and  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  as  their 
abbeys  and  cathedrals  testify  :  now,  even  the  puri- 
taiiism  is  all  gone.  London  is  pagan.  He  fancied 


STONEHENGE.  279 

that  greater  men  had  lived  in  England,  than  any 
of  her  writers ;  and,  in  fact,  about  the  time  when 
those  writers  appeared,  the  last  of  these  were  al 
ready  gone. 

We  left  the  mound  in  the  twilight,  with  the  de 
sign  to  return  the  next  morning,  and  coming  back 
two  miles  to  our  inn,  we  were  met  by  little 
showers,  and  late  as  it  was,  men  and  women  were 
out  attempting  to  protect  their  spread  wind-rows. 
The  grass  grows  rank  and  dark  in  the  showery 
England.  At  the  inn,  there  was  only  milk  for  one 
cup  of  tea.  When  we  called  for  more,  the  girl 
brought  us  three  drops.  My  friend  was  annoyed 
who  stood  for  the  credit  of  an  English  inn,  and 
still  more,  the  next  morning,  by  the  dog-cart,  sole 
procurable  vehicle,  in  which  we  were  to  be  sent 
to  Wilton.  I  engaged  the  local  antiquary,  Mr. 
Brown,  to  go  with  us  to  Stonehenge,  on  our  way, 
and  show  us  what  he  knew  of  the  "  astronomical  " 
and  "  sacrificial  "  stones.  I  stood  on  the  last,  and 
he  pointed  to  the  upright,  or  rather,  inclined  stone, 
called  the  "  astronomical,"  and  bade  me  notice  that 
its  top  ranged  with  the  sky-line.  "  Yes."  Very 
well.  Now,  at  the  summer  solstice,  the  sun  rises 
exactly  over  the  top  of  that  stone,  and,  at  the  Dru- 
idical  temple  at  Abury,  there  is  also  an  astronomi 
cal  stone,  in  the  same  relative  positions. 


280  ENGLISH    TIIAITS. 

In  the  silence  of  tradition,  this  one  relation  to 
science  becomes  an  important  clue  ;  but  we  were 
content  to  leave  the  problem,  with  the  rocks. 
Was  this  the  "Giants'  Dance"  which  Merlin 
brought  from  Killaraus,  in  Ireland,  to  be  Uther 
Pendragon's  monument  to  the  British  nobles  whom 
Hengist  slaughtered  here,  as  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth  relates  ?  or  was  it  a  Roman  work,  as  Inigo 
Jones  explained  to  King  James ;  or  identical  in 
design  and  style  with  the  East  Indian  temples  of 
the  sun  ;  as  Davies  in  the  Celtic  Researches  main 
tains  ?  Of  all  the  writers,  Stukeley  is  the  best. 
The  heroic  antiquary,  charmed  with  the  geometric 
perfections  of  his  ruin,  connects  it  with  the  oldest 
monuments  and  religion  of  the  world,  and  with  the 
courage  of  his  tribe,  does  not  stick  to  say,  "  the  Deity 
who  made  the  world  by  the  scheme  of  Stone- 
henge."  He  finds  that  the  cursus  *  on  Salisbury  Plain 
stretches  across  the  downs,  like  a  line  of  latitude 
upon  the  globe,  and  the  meridian  line  of  Stone- 


*  Connected  with  Stonehenge  are  an  avenue  and  a  cursus. 
The  avenue  is  a  narrow  road  of  raised  earth,  extending  594 
yards  in  a  straight  line  from  the  grand  entrance,  then  dividing 
into  two  branches,  which  lead,  severally,  to  a  row  of  barrows ; 
and  to  the  curstis,  —  an  artificially  formed  flat  tract  of  ground. 
This  is  half  a  mile  northeast  from  Stonehenge,  bounded  by 
banks  and  ditches,  3036  yards  long,  by  110  broad. 


STONEHENGE.  281 

henge  passes  exactly  through  the  middle  of  this 
curs  us.  But  here  is  the  high  point  of  the  theory : 
the  Druids  had  the  magnet ;  laid  their  courses  by  it ; 
their  cardinal  points  in  Stonehenge,  Ambresbury, 
and  elsewhere,  which  vary  a  little  from  true  east 
and  west,  followed  the  variations  of  the  compass. 
The  Druids  were  Phoenicians.  The  name  of  the 
magnet  is  lapis  Heracleus,  and  Hercules  was  the 
god  of  the  Phoenicians.  Hercules,  in  the  legend, 
drew  his  bow  at  the  sun,  and  the  sun-god  gave  him 
a  golden  cup,  with  which  he  sailed  over  the  ocean. 
What  was  this,  but  a  compass-box  ?  This  cup  or 
little  boat,  in  which  the  magnet  was  made  to  float 
on  water,  and  so  show  the  north,  was  probably  its 
first  form,  before  it  was  suspended  on  a  pin.  But 
science  was  an  arcanum,  and,  as  Britain  was  a 
Phoenician  secret,  so  they  kept  their  compass  a 
secret,  and  it  was  lost  with  the  Tyrian  commerce. 
The  golden  fleece,  again,  of  Jason,  was  the  com 
pass,  —  a  bit  of  loadstone,  easily  supposed  to  be 
the  only  one  in  the  world,  and  therefore  naturally 
awakening  the  cupidity  and  ambition  of  the  young 
heroes  of  a  maritime  nation  to  join  in  an  expedi* 
tion  to  obtain  possession  of  this  wise  stone.  Hence 
the  fable  that  the  ship  Argo  was  loquacious  and 
oracular.  There  is  also  some  curious  coincidence 
in  the  names.  Apollodorus  makes  Magnes  the  son 


282  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

of  jEolus,  who  married  Nais.  On  hints  like  these^ 
Stukeley  builds  again  the  grand  colonnade  into  his 
toric  harmony,  and  computing  backward  by  the 
known  variations  of  the  compass,  bravely  assigns  the 
year  406  before  Christ,  for  the  date  of  the  temple.! 

For  the  difficulty  of  handling  and  carrying 
stories  of  this  size,  the  like  is  done  in  all  cities, 
every  day,  with  no  other  aid  than  horse  power.  I 
chanced  to  see  a  year  ago  men  at  work  on  the  sub 
structure  of  a  house  in  Bowdoin  Square,  in  Bos 
ton,  swinging  a  block  of  granite  of  the  size  of  the 
largest  of  the  Stonehenge  columns  with  an  ordinary 
derrick.  The  men  were  common  masons,  with 
paddies  to  help,  nor  did  they  think  they  were  doing 
anything  remarkable.  I  suppose,  there  were  as 
good  men  a  thousand  years  ago.  And  we  wonder 
how  Stonehenge  was  built  and  forgotten.  After 
spending  half  an  hour  on  the  spot,  we  set  forth 
in  our  dog-cart  over  the  downs  for  Wilton,  C. 
not  suppressing  some  threats  and  evil  omens  on 
the  proprietors,  for  keeping  these  broad  plains  a 
wretched  sheep-walk,  when  so  many  thousands  of 
English  men  were  hungry  and  wanted  labor.  But 
I  heard  afterwards  that  it  is  not  an  economy  to 
cultivate  this  land,  which  only  yields  one  crop  on 
being  broken  up  and  is  then  spoiled. 

We  came  to  Wilton  and  to  Wilton  Hall,  —  the 


STONEHENGE.  283 

renowned  seat  of  the  Earls  of  Pembroke,  a  house  \ 
known  to  Shakspeare  and  Massinger,  the  frequent 
home  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  where  he  wrote  the 
Arcadia  ;  where  he  conversed  with  Lord  Brooke, 
a  man  of  deep  thought,  and  a  poet,  who  caused  to 
be  engraved  on  his  tombstone,  "  Here  lies  Eulke 
Greville  Lord  Brooke,  the  friend  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney."  It  is  now  the  property  of  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  and  the  residence  of  his  brother,  Sid 
ney  Herbert,  Esq.,  and  is  esteemed  a  noble  speci 
men  of  the  English  manor-hall.  My  "friend  had 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Herbert  to  his  housekeeper,  and 
the  house  was  shown.  The  state  drawing-room  is 
a  double  cube,  30  feet  high,  by  30  feet  wide,  by 
60  feet  long :  the  adjoining  room  is  a  single  cube, 
of  30  feet  every  way.  Although  these  apartments 
and  the  long  library  were  full  of  good  family 
portraits,  Vandykes  and  other ;  and  though  there 
were  some  good  pictures,  and  a  quadrangle  cloister 
full  of  antique  and  modern  statuary,  —  to  which 
C.,  catalogue  in  hand,  did  all  too  much  justice,  — 
yet  the  eye  was  still  drawn  to  the  windows,  to  a 
magnificent  lawn,  on  which  grew  the  finest  cedars 
in  England.  I  had  not  seen  more  charming 
grounds.  We  went  out,  and  walked  over  the 
estate.  We  crossed  a  bridge  built  by  Inigo  Jones 
over  a  stream,  of  which  the  gardener  did  not  know 


284  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

the  name,  (  Qu.  Alph  ?)  watched  the  deer  ;  climbed 
to  the  lonely  sculptured  summer  house,  on  a  hill 
backed  by  a  wood ;  came  down  into  the  Italian 
garden,  and  into  a  French  pavilion,  garnished  with 
French  busts ;  and  so  again,  to  the  house,  where 
we  found  a  table  laid  for  us  with  bread,  meats, 
peaches,  grapes,  and  wine. 

On  leaving  Wilton  House,  we  took  the  coach  for 
Salisbury.  The  Cathedral,  which  was  finished  600 
years  ago,  has  even  a  spruce  and  modern  air,  and 
its  spire  is  the  highest,  in  England.  I  know  not 
why,  but  I  had  been  more  struck  with  one  of  no 
fame  at  Coventry,  which  rises  300  feet  from  the 
ground,  with  the  lightness  of  a  mullein-plant,  and 
not  at  all  implicated  with  the  church.  Salisbury- 
is  now  esteemed  the  culmination  of  the  Gothic  art 
in  England,  as  the  buttresses  are  fully  unmasked, 
and  honestly  detailed  from  the  sides  of  the  pile. 
The  interior  of  the  Cathedral  is  obstructed  by  the 
organ  in  the  middle,  acting  like  a  screen.  I  know 
not  why  in  real  architecture  the  hunger  of  the  eye 
for  length  of  line  is  so  rarely  gratified.  The  rule 
of  art  is  that  a  colonnade  is  more  beautiful  the 
longer  it  is,  and  that  ad  infinitum.  And  the  nave 
of  a  church  is  seldom  so  long  that  it  need  be  di 
vided  by  a  screen. 

We  loitered  in   the   church,  outside  the  choir 


STONEHENGE.  285 

whilst  service  was  said.  Whilst  we  listened  to  the 
organ,  my  friend  remarked,  the  music  is  good,  and 
yet  not  quite  religious,  but  somewhat  as  if  a  monk 
were  panting  to  some  fine  Queen  of  Heaven.  C. 
was  unwilling,  and  we  did  not  ask  to  have  the 
choir  shown  us,  but  returned  to  our  inn,  after 
seeing  another  old  church  of  the  place.  We 
passed  in  the  train  Clarendon  Park,  but  could  see 
little  but  the  edge  of  a  wood,  though  C.  had  wished 
to  pay  closer  attention  to  the  birthplace  of  the 
Decrees  of  Clarendon.  At  Bishopstoke  we  stopped, 
and  found  Mr.  H.,  who  received  us  in  his  carriage, 
and  took  us  to  his  house  at  Bishops  Waltham. 

On  Sunday,  we  had  much  discourse  on  a  very  rainy 
day.  My  friends  asked,  whether  there  were  any 
Americans  ?  —  any  with  an  American  idea,  —  any 
theory  of  the  right  future  of  that  country  ?  Thus 
challenged,  I  bethought  myself  neither  of  caucuses 
nor  congress,  neither  of  presidents  nor  of  cabinet- 
ministers,  nor  of  such  as  would  make  of  America 
another  Europe.  I  thought  only  of  the  simplest 
and  purest  minds  ;  I  said,  '  Certainly  yes  ;  —  but 
those  who  hold  it  are  fanatics  of  a  dream  which  I 
should  hardly  care  to  relate  to  your  English  ears, 
to  which  it  might  be  only  ridiculous,  —  and  yet  it 
is  the  only  true.'  So  I  opened  the  dogma  of  no- 
government  and  non-resistance,  and  anticipated  the 


286  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

objections  and  the  fun,  and  procured  a  kind  of 
hearing  for  it.  I  said,  it  is  true  that  I  have  nevei 
seen  in  any  country  a  man  of  sufficient  valor  to 
stand  for  this  truth,  and  yet  it  is  plain  to  me,  that 
no  less  valor  than  this  can  command  my  respect. 
I  can  easily  see  the  bankruptcy  of  the  vulgar 
musket-worship,  —  though  great  men  be  musket- 
worshippers  ;  —  and  'tis  certain,  as  God  liveth,  the 
gun  that  does  not  need  another  gun,  the  law  of 
love  and  justice  alone,  can  effect  a  clean  revolution. 
I  fancied  that  one  or  two  of  my  anecdotes  made 
some  impression  on  C.,  and  I  insisted,  that  the 
manifest  absurdity  of  the  view  to  English  feasibil 
ity  could  make  no  difference  to  a  gentleman;  that 
as  to  our  secure  tenure  of  our  mutton-chop  and 
spinage  in  London  or  in  Boston,  the  soul  might 
quote  Talleyrand,  "  Monsieur,  je  n'en  vois  pas  la 
necessite."  *  As  I  had  thus  taken  in  the  conversa 
tion  the  saint's  part,  when  dinner  was  announced, 
C.  refused  to  go  out  before  me,  —  "  he  was  alto 
gether  too  wicked."  I  planted  my  back  against 
the  wall,  and  our  host  wittily  rescued  us  from  the 
dilemma,  by  saying,  he  was  the  wickedest,  and 
would  walk  out  first,  then  C.  followed,  and  I  went 
last. 

On   the  way  to  Winchester,  whither   our   host 

*  "  Mais,  Monseigneur,  ilfaut  que  fexiste." 


STONEHENGE.  287 

accompanied  us  in  the  afternoon,  my  friends  asked 
many  questions  respecting  American  landscape, 
forests,  houses,  —  my  house,  for  example.  It  is 
not  easy  to  answer  these  queries  well.  There  I 
thought,  in  America,  lies  nature  sleeping,  over 
growing,  almost  conscious,  too  much  by  half  for 
man  in  the  picture,  and  so  giving  a  certain  tristesse, 
like  the  rank  vegetation  of  swamps  and  forests 
seen  at  night,  steeped  in  dews  and  rains,  which  it 
loves  ;  and  on  it  man  seems  not  able  to  make  much 
impression.  There,  in  that  great  sloven  continent, 
in  high  Alleghany  pastures,  in  the  sea-wide,  sky- 
skirted  prairie,  still  sleeps  and  murmurs  and  hides 
the  great  mother,  long  since  driven  away  from  the 
trim  hedge-rows  and  over-cultivated  garden  of 
England.  And,  in  England,  I  am  quite  too  sensi 
ble  of  this.  Every  one  is  on  his  good  behavior, 
and  must  be  dressed  for  dinner  at  six.  So  I  put 
off  my  friends  with  very  inadequate  details,  as  best 
I  could. 

Just  before  entering  Winchester,  we  stopped  at 
the  Church  of  Saint  Cross,  and,  after  looking 
through  the  quaint  antiquity,  we  demanded  a  piece 
of  bread  and  a  draught  of  beer,  which  the  founder, 
Henry  de  Blois,  in  1136,  commanded  should  be 
given  to  every  one  who  should  ask  it  at  the  gate. 
We  had  both,  from  the  old  couple  who  take  care 


288  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

of  the  church.  Some  twenty  people,  every  day, 
they  said,  make  the  same  demand.  This  hospital 
ity  of  seven  hundred  years'  standing  did  not  hin 
der  C.  from  pronouncing  a  malediction  on  the 
priest  who  receives  £2000  a  year,  that  were  meant 
for  the  poor,  and  spends  a  pittance  on  this  small 
beer  and  crumbs. 

In  the  Cathedral,  I  was  gratified,  at  least  by  the 
ample  dimensions.  The  length  of  line  exceeds 
that  of  any  other  English  church ;  being  556  feet 
by  250  in  breadth  of  transept.  I  think  I  prefer 
this  church  to  all  I  have  seen,  except  Westminster 
and  York.  Here  was  Canute  buried,  and  here 
Alfred  the  Great  was  crowned  and  buried,  and 
here  the  Saxon  kings :  and,  later,  in  his  own 
church,  William  of  Wykeham.  It  is  very  old : 
part  of  the  crypt  into  which  we  went  down  and 
saw  the  Saxon  and  Norman  arches  of  the  old 
church  on  which  the  present  stands,  was  built 
fourteen  or  fifteen  hundred  years  ago.  Sharon 
Turner  says,  "  Alfred  was  buried  at  Winchester,  in 
the  Abbey  he  had  founded  there,  but  his  remains 
were  removed  by  Henry  I.  to  the  new  Abbey  in 
the  meadows  at  Hyde,  on  the  northern  quarter  of 
the  city,  and  laid  under  the  high  altar.  The  build 
ing  was  destroyed  at  the  Reformation,  and  what 
is  left  of  Alfred's  body  now  lies  covered  by  mod- 


STONEHENGE.  289 

ern  buildings,  or  buried  in  the  ruins  of  the 
old."  *  William  of  Wykeham's  shrine  tomb  was 
unlocked  for  us,  and  C.  took  hold  of  the  recumbent 
statue's  marble  hands,  and  patted  them  affection 
ately,  for  he  rightly  values  the  brave  man  who 
built  Windsor,  and  this  Cathedral,  and  the  School 
here,  and  New  College  at  Oxford.  But  it  was 
growing  late  in  the  afternoon.  Slowly  we  left  the 
old  house,  and  parting  with  our  host,  we  took  the 
train  for  London. 

*  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  I.  599. 

25 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

PERSONAL. 

IN  these  comments  on  an  old  journey  now  re 
vised  after  seven  busy  years  have  much  changed 
men  and  things  in  England,  I  have  abstained  from 
reference  to  persons,  except  in  the  last  chapter, 
and  in  one  or  two  cases  where  the  fame  of  the 
parties  seemed  to  have  given  the  public  a  property 
in  all  that  concerned  them.  I  must  further  allow 
myself  a  few  notices,  if  only  as  an  acknowledg 
ment  of  debts  that  cannot  be  paid.  My  journeys 
were  cheered  by  so  much  kindness  from  new 
friends,  that  my  impression  of  the  island  is  bright 
with  agreeable  memories  both  of  public  societies 
and  of  households  :  and,  what  is  nowhere  better 
found  than  in  England,  a  cultivated  person  fitly 
surrounded  by  a  happy  home,  "  with  honor,  love, 
obedience,  troops  of  friends,"  is  of  all  institutions 
the  best.  At  the  landing  in  Liverpool,  I  found 
my  Manchester  correspondent  awaiting  me,  a  gen 
tleman  whose  kind  reception  was  followed  by  a 

(290) 


PERSONAL.  291 

train  of  friendly  and  effective  attentions  which 
never  rested  whilst  I  remained  in  the  country.  A 
man  of  sense  and  of  letters,  the  editor  of  a  power 
ful  local  journal,  he  added  to  solid  virtues  an  infi 
nite  sweetness  and  bonhommie.  There  seemed  a 
pool  of  honey  about  his  heart  which  lubricated 
all  his  speech  and  action  with  fine  jets  of  mead. 
An  equal  good  fortune  attended  many  later  acci 
dents  of  my  journey,  until  the  sincerity  of  English 
kindness  ceased  to  surprise.  My  visit  fell  in  the 
fortunate  days  when  Mr.  Bancroft  was  the  Ameri 
can  Minister  in  London,  and  at  his  house,  or 
through  his  good  offices,  I  had  easy  access  to  ex 
cellent  persons  and  to  privileged  places.  At  the 
house  of  Mr.  Carlyle,  I  met  persons  eminent  in 
society  and  in  letters.  The  privileges  of  the 
Athenamm  and  of  the  Reform  Clubs  were  hospi 
tably  opened  to  me,  and  I  found  much  advantage 
in  the  circles  of  the  "  Geologic,"  the  "  Antiqua 
rian,"  and  the  "  Royal  Societies."  Every  day  in 
London  gave  me  new  opportunities  of  meeting 
men  and  women  who  give  splendor  to  society.  I 
saw  Rogers,  Hallam,  Macaulay,  Milnes,  Milman, 
Barry  Cornwall,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Tennyson, 
Leigh  Hunt,  D'Israeli,  Helps,  Wilkinson,  Bailey, 
Kenyon,  and  Forster :  the  younger  poets,  Clough, 
Arnold,  and  Patmore  ;  and,  among  the  men  of 


292  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

science,  Robert  Brown,  Owen,  Sedgwick,  Faraday, 
Buckland,  Lyell,  De  la  Beche,  Hooker,  Carpenter, 
Babbage,  and  Edward  Forbes.  It  was  my  privi 
lege  also  to  converse  with  Miss  Baillie,  with  Lady 
Morgan,  with  Mrs.  Jameson,  and  Mrs.  Somerville. 
A  finer  hospitality  made  many  private  houses  not 
less  known  and  dear.  It  is  not  in  distinguished 
circles  that  wisdom  and  elevated  characters  are 
usually  found,  or,  if  found,  not  confined  thereto  ; 
and  my  recollections  of  the  best  hours  go  back  to 
private  conversations  in  different  parts  of  the  king 
dom,  with  persons  little  known.  Nor  am  I  insen 
sible  to  the  courtesy  which  frankly  opened  to  me 
some  noble  mansions,  if  I  do  not  adorn  my  page 
with  their  names.  Among  the  privileges  of  Lon 
don,  I  recall  with  pleasure  two  or  three  signal 
days,  one  at  Kew,  where  Sir  William  Hooker 
showed  me  all  the  riches  of  the  vast  botanic  gar 
den  ;  one  at  the  Museum,  where  Sir  Charles  Fel- 
lowes  explained  in  detail  the  history  of  his  Ionic 
trophy-monument ;  and  still  another,  on  which 
Mr.  Owen  accompanied  my  countryman  Mr.  H. 
and  myself  through  the  Hunterian  Museum. 

The  like  frank  hospitality,  bent  on  real  service, 
I  found  among  the  great  and  the  humble,  wherever 
I  went ;  in  Birmingham,  in  Oxford,  in  Leicester, 
ir>  Nottingham,  in  Sheffield,  in  Manchester,  iu 


PERSONAL.  293 

Liverpool.  At  Edinburgh,  through  the  kindness 
of  Dr.  Samuel  Brown,  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
De  Quincey,  of  Lord  Jeffrey,  of  Wilson,  of  Mrs. 
Crowe,  of  the  Messrs.  Chambers,  and  of  a  man  of 
high  character  and  genius,  the  short  lived  painter, 
David  Scott. 

At  Ambleside  in  March,  1848,  I  was  for  a 
couple  of  days  the  guest  of  Miss  Martineau,  then 
newly  returned  from  her  Egyptian  tour.  On  Sun 
day  afternoon,  I  accompanied  her  to  Rydal  Mount. 
And  as  I  have  recorded  a  visit  to  Wordsworth, 
many  years  before,  I  must  not  forget  this  second 
interview.  We  found  Mr.  Wordsworth  asleep  on 
the  sofa.  He  was  at  first  silent  and  indisposed,  as 
an  old  man  suddenly  waked,  before  he  had  ended 
his  nap  ;  but  soon  became  full  of  talk  on  the  French 
news.  He  was  nationally  bitter  on  the  French : 
bitter  on  Scotchmen,  too.  No  Scotchman,  he  said, 
can  write  English.  He  detailed  the  two  models,  on 
one  or  the  other  of  which  all  the  sentences  of  the 
historian  Robertson  are  framed.  Nor  could  Jef 
frey,  nor  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers  write  English, 
nor  can  *  *,  who  is  a  pest  to  the  English  tongue. 
Incidentally  he  added,  Gibbon  cannot  write  Eng 
lish.  The  Edinburgh  Review  wrote  what  would 
tell  and  what  would  sell.  It  had  however  changed 
the  tone  of  its  literary  criticism  from  the  time  when 
25* 


2(H  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

a  certain  letter  was  written  to  the  editor  by  Coleridge, 
Mrs.  W.  had  the  Editor's  answer  in  her  possession, 
Tennyson  he  thinks  a  right  poetic  genius,  though 
with  some  affectation.  He  had  thought  an  elder 
brother  of  Tennyson  at  first  the  better  poet,  but 
must  now  reckon  Alfred  the  true  one.  .  .  .  In 
speaking  of  I  know  not  what  style,  he  said,  "  to  be 
sure,  it  was  the  manner,  but  then  you  know  the 
matter  always  comes  out  of  the  manner." 
He  thought  Rio  Janeiro  the  best  place  in  the  world 
for  a  great  capital  city.  .  .  .  We  talked  of 
English  national  character.  I  told  him,  it  was  not 
creditable  that  no  one  in  all  the  country  knew  any 
thing  of  Thomas  Taylor,  the  Platonist,  whilst  in 
every  American  library  his  translations  are  found. 
I  said,  if  Plato's  Republic  were  published  in 
England  as  a  new  book  to-day,  do  you  think  it 
would  find  any  readers  ?  —  he  confessed,  it  would 
not :  "  and  yet,"  he  added  after  a  pause,  with  that 
complacency  which  never  deserts  a  true-born  Eng 
lishman,  "and  yet  we  have  embodied  it  all." 

His  opinions  of  French,  English,  Irish,  and 
Scotch,  seemed  rashly  formulized  from  little  anec 
dotes  of  what  had  befallen  himself  and  members 
of  his  family,  in  a  diligence  or  stage-coach.  His 
face  sometimes  lighted  up,  but  his  conversation 
.was  not  marked  by  special  force  or  elevation.  Yet 


PERSONAL.  295 

perhaps  it  is  a  high  compliment  to  the  cultivation 
of  the  English  generally,  when  we  find  such  a 
man  not  distinguished.  He  had  a  healthy  look, 
with  a  weather-beaten  face,  his  face  corrugated, 
especially  the  large  nose. 

Miss  Martineau,  who  lived  near  him,  praised 
him  to  me  not  for  his  poetry,  but  for  thrift  and 
economy ;  for  having  afforded  to  his  country- 
neighbors  an  example  of  a  modest  household, 
where  comfort  and  culture  were  secured  without 
any  display.  She  said,  that,  in  his  early  house 
keeping  at  the  cottage  where  he  first  lived,  he  was 
accustomed  to  offer  his  friends  bread  and  plainest 
fare :  if  they  wanted  any  thing  more,  they  must 
pay  him  for  their  board.  It  was  the  rule  of  the 
house.  I  replied,  that  it  evinced  English  pluck 
more  than  any  anecdote  I  knew.  A  gentleman  in 
the  neighborhood  told  the  story  of  Walter  Scott's 
staying  once  for  a  week  with  Wordsworth,  and 
slipping  out  every  day  under  pretence  of  a  walk, 
to  the  Swan  Inn,  for  a  cold  cut  and  porter  ;  and 
one  day  passing  with  Wordsworth  the  inn,  he  was 
betrayed  by  the  landlord's  asking  him  if  he  had 
come  for  his  porter.  Of  course,  this  trait  would 
have  another  look  in  London,  and  there  you  will 
hear  from  different  literary  men,  that  Wordsworth 
had  no  personal  friend,  that  he  was  not  amiable, 


296  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

that  he  was  parsimonious,  &c.  Landor,  always 
generous,  says,  that  he  never  praised  any  body 
A  gentleman  in  London  showed  me  a  watch 
that  once  belonged  to  Milton,  whose  initials  are 
engraved  on  its  face.  He  said,  he  once  showed 
this  to  Wordsworth,  who  took  it  in  one  hand,  then 
drew  out  his  own  watch,  and  held  it  up  with  the 
other,  before  the  company,  but  no  one  making  the 
expected  remark,  he  put  back  his  own  in  silence. 
I  do  not  attach  much  importance  to  the  dispar 
agement  of  Wordsworth  among  London  scholars. 
Who  reads  him  well  will  know,  that  in  following 
the  strong  bent  of  his  genius,  he  was  careless  of 
the  many,  careless  also  of  the  few,  self-assured 
that  he  should  "  create  the  taste  by  which  he  is  to 
be  enjoyed."  He  lived  long  enough  to  witness 
the  revolution  he  had  wrought,  and  "  to  see  what 
he  foresaw."  There  are  torpid  places  in  his  mind, 
there  is  something  hard  and  sterile  in  his  poetry, 
want  of  grace  and  variety,  want  of  due  catholicity 
and  cosmopolitan  scope :  he  had  conformities  to 
English  politics  and  traditions ;  he  had  egotistic 
puerilities  in  the  choice  and  treatment  of  his  sub 
jects  ;  but  let  us  say  of  him,  that,  alone  in  his  time 
he  treated  the  human  mind  well,  and  with  an  ab 
solute  trust.  His  adherence  to  his  poetic  creed 


PERSONAL.  297 

rested  on  real  inspirations.  The  Ode  on  Immor 
tality  is  the  high-water-mark  which  the  intellect 
has  reached  in  this  age.  New  means  were  em 
ployed,  and  new  realms  added  to  the  empire  of 
the  muse,  by  his  courage 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

RESULT. 

ENGLAND  is  the  best  of  actual  nations.  It  is  no 
ideal  framework,  it  is  an  old  pile  built  in  different 
ages,  with  repairs,  additions,  and  makeshifts ;  but 
you  see  the  poor  best  you  have  got.  London  is 
the  epitome  of  our  times,  and  the  Rome  of  to-day. 
Broad-fronted  broad-bottomed  Teutons,  they  stand 
in  solid  phalanx  foursquare  to  the  points  of  com 
pass  ;  they  constitute  the  modern  world,  they  have 
earned  their  vantage-ground,  and  held  it  through 
ages  of  adverse  possession.  They  are  well  marked 
and  differing  from  other  leading  races.  England 
is  tender-hearted.  Rome  was  not.  England  is\ 
not  so  public  in  its  bias ;  private  life  is  its  place  of 
honor.  Truth  in  private  life,  untruth  in  public, 
marks  these  home-loving  men.  Their  political 
conduct  is  not  decided  by  general  views,  but  by 
internal  intrigues  and  personal  and  family  interest. 
They  cannot  readily  see  beyond  England.  The 
history  of  Rome  and  Greece,  when  written  by 

(298) 


RESULT.  299 

their  scholars,  degenerates  into  English  party  pamph 
lets.  They  cannot  see  beyond  England,  nor  in 
England  can  they  transcend  the  interests  of  the 
governing  classes.  "  English  principles  "  mean  a 
primary  regard  to  the  interests  of  property.  Eng 
land,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  combine  to  check  the 
colonies.  England  and  Scotland  combine  to 
check  Irish  manufactures  and  trade.  England 
rallies  at  home  to  check  Scotland.  In  England, 
the  strong  classes  check  the  weaker.  In  the  home; 
population  of  near  thirty  millions,  there  are  but 
one  million  voters.  The  Church  punishes  dissent,  \ 
punishes  education.  Down  to  a  late  day,  mar 
riages  performed  by  dissenters  were  illegal.  A 
bitter  class-legislation  gives  power  to  those  who 
are  rich  enough  to  buy  a  law.  The  game-laws 
are  a  proverb  of  oppression.  Pauperism  incrusts  ' 
and  clogs  the  state,  and  in  hard  times  becomes 
hideous.  In  bad  seasons,  the  porridge  was  diluted. 
Multitudes  lived  miserably  by  shell-fish  and  sea- 
ware.  In  cities,  the  children  are  trained  to  beg, 
until  they  shall  be  old  enough  to  rob.  Men  and 
women  were  convicted  of  poisoning  scores  of  chil 
dren  for  burial-fees.  In  Irish  districts,  men  dete 
riorated  in  size  and  shape,  the  nose  sunk,  the 
gums  were  exposed,  with  diminished  brain  and 
brutal  form.  During  the  Australian  emigration, 


800  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

multitudes  were  rejected  by  the  commissioners  as 
being  too  emaciated  for  useful  colonists.  During 
the  Russian  war,  few  of  those  that  offered  as  recruits 
were  found  up  to  the  medical  standard,  though  it 
had  been  reduced. 

The  foreign  policy  of  England,  though  ambi 
tious  and  lavish  of  money,  has  not  often  been  gen- 
Serous  or  just.     It  has  a  principal  regard  to  the  in- 
j  terest  of  trade,  checked  however  by  the  aristocratic 
\  bias  of  the  ambassador,  which  usually  puts  him  in 
sympathy   with  the  continental  Courts.     It  sanc 
tioned  the  partition  of  Poland,  it  betrayed  Genoa, 
;    Sicily,  Parga,  Greece,  Turkey,  Rome,  and  Hun 
gary. 

Some  public  regards  they  have.  They  have 
abolished  slavery  in  the  West  Indies,  and  put  an 
end  to  human  sacrifices  in  the  East.  At  home 
they  have  a  certain  statute  hospitality.  England 
keeps  open  doors,  as  a  trading  country  must,  to  all 
nations.  It  is  one  of  their  fixed  ideas,  and  wrath- 
fally  supported  by  their  laws  in  unbroken  sequence 
for  a  thousand  years.  In  Magna  Charta  it  was 
ordained,  that  all  "  merchants  shall  have  safe  and 
secure  conduct  to  go  out  and  come  into  England, 
and  to  stay  there,  and  to  pass  as  well  by  land  as 
by  water,  to  buy  and  sell  by  the  ancient  allowed 
customs,  without  any  evil  toll,  except  in  time  of 


RESULT.  301 

war,  or  when  they  shall  be  of  any  nation  at  war 
with  us."  It  is  a  statute  and  obliged  hospitality, 
and  peremptorily  maintained.  But  this  shop-rule 
had  one  magnificent  effect.  It  extends  its  cold 
unalterable  courtesy  to  political  exiles  of  every 
opinion,  and  is  a  fact  which  might  give  additional 
light  to  that  portion  of  the  planet  seen  from  the 
farthest  star.  But  this  perfunctory  hospitality  puts 
no  sweetness  into  their  unaccommodating  manners, 
no  check  on  that  puiggant  nationality  which  makes 
their  existence  incompatible  with  all  that  is  not 
English. 

What  we  must  say  about  a  nation  is  a  superfi 
cial  dealing  with  symptoms.  We  cannot  go  deep 
enough  into  the  biography  of  the  spirit  who  never 
throws  himself  entire  into  one  hero,  but  delegates 
his  energy  in  parts  or  spasms  to  vicious  and  defec 
tive  individuals.  But  the  wealth  of  the  source  is 
seen  in  the  plenitude  of  English  nature.  What 
variety  of  power  and  talent ;  what  facility  and  plen- 
teousness  of  knighthood,  lordship,  ladyship,  roy 
alty,  loyalty ;  what  a  proud  chivalry  is  indicated  in 
"  Collins's  Peerage,"  through  eight  hundred  years  ! 
What  dignity  resting  on  what  reality  and  stoutness  ! 
What  courage  in  war,  what  sinew  in  labor,  what 
cunning  workmen,  what  inventors  and  engineers, 
what  seamen  and  pilots,  what  clerks  and  scholars  ! 
26 


802  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

/No    one  man  and  no  few  men  can  represent  tliem. 
It  is  a  people  of  myriad  personalities.     Their  many- 

'  headedness  is  owing  to  the  advantageous  position 
of  the  middle  class,  who  are  always  the  source  of 
letters  and  science.  Hence  the  vast  plenty  of  their 
aesthetic  production.  As  they  are  many-headed, 
so  they  are  many-nationed :  their  colonization  an 
nexes  archipelagoes  and  continents,  and  their 

;  speech  seems  destined  to  be  the  universal  language 
of  men.  I  have  noted  the  reserve  of  power  in 
the  English  temperament.  In  the  island,  they 

,  never  let  out  all  the  length  of  all  the  reins,  there 

|  is  no  Berserkir  rage,  no  abandonment  or  ecstasy  of 
will  or  intellect,  like  that  of  the  Arabs  in  the  time 
of  Mahomet,  or  like  that  which  intoxicated  France 
in  1789.  But  who  would  see  the  uncoiling  of 
that  tremendous  spring,  the  explosion  of  their 
well-husbanded  forces,  must  follow  the  swarms 
which  pouring  now  for  two  hundred  years  from 
the  British  islands,  have  sailed,  and  rode,  and 
traded,  and  planted,  through  all  climates,  mainly 
following  the  belt  of  empire,  the  temperate  zones, 
carrying  the  Saxon  seed,  with  its  instinct  for  .lib 
erty  and  law,  for  arts  and  for  thought,  —  acquiring 
under  some  skies  a  more  electric  energy  than  the 
native  air  allows,  —  to  the  conquest  of  the  globe. 
Their  colonial  policy,  obeying  the  necessities  of 


RESULT.  303 

a  vast  empire,  has  become  liberal.  Canada  and 
Australia  have  been  contented  with  substantial 
independence.  They  are  expiating  the  wrongs  of 
India,  by  benefits ;  first,  in  works  for  the  irriga 
tion  of  the  peninsula,  and  roads  and  telegraphs ; 
and  secondly,  in  the  instruction  of  the  people,  to 
qualify  them  for  self-government,  when  the  British 
power  shall  be  finally  called  home. 

Their  mind  is  in  a  state  of  arrested  devel 
opment,  —  a  divine  cripple  like  Vulcan ;  a  blind 
savant  like  Huber  and  Sanderson.  They  do  not 
occupy  themselves  on  matters  of  general  and  last 
ing  import,  but  on  a  corporeal  civilization,  on 
goods  that  perish  in  the  using.  But  they  read 
with  good  intent,  and  what  they  learn  they  incar 
nate.  The  English  mind  turns  every  abstraction 
it  can  receive  into  a  portable  utensil,  or  a  working 
institution.  Such  is  their  tenacity,  and  such  their 
practical  turn,  that  they  hold  all  they  gain.  Hence 
we  say,  that  only  the  English  race  can  be  trusted 
with  freedom,  —  freedom  which  is  double-edged 
and  dangerous  to  any  but  the  wise  and  robust. 
The  English  designate  the  kingdoms  emulous  of 
free  institutions,  as  the  sentimental  nations.  Their 
culture  is  not  an  outside  varnish,  but  is  thorough 
and  secular  in  families  and  the  race.  They  are 
oppressive  with  their  temperament,  and  all  the 
more  that  they  are  refined.  I  have  sometimes 


304  ENGLISH   TRAITS. 

seen  them  walk  with  my  countrymen  when  I  was 
forced  to  allow  them  every  advantage,  and  their 
companions  seemed  bags  of  bones. 

There  is  cramp  limitation  in  their  habit  of 
thought,  sleepy  routine,  and  a  tortoise's  instinct 
to  hold  hard  to  the  ground  with  his  claws,  lest  he 
should  be  thrown  on  his  back.  There  is  a  drag  of 
inertia  which  resists  reform  in  every  shape  ;  —  law- 
reform,  army-reform,  extension  of  suffrage,  Jewish 
franchise,  Catholic  emancipation,  —  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  of  impressment,  penal  code,  and  en 
tails.  They  praise  this  drag,  under  the  for 
mula,  that  it  is  the  excellence  of  the  British 
constitution,  that  no  law  can  anticipate  the  public 
opinion.  These  poor  tortoises  must  hold  hard,  for 
they  feel  no  wings  sprouting  at  their  shoulders. 
Yet  somewhat  divine  warms  at  their  heart,  and 
waits  a  happier  hour.  It  hides  in  their  sturdy 
will.  "  Will,"  said  the  old  philosophy,  "  is  the 
measure  of  power,"  and  personality  is  the  token 
of  this  race.  Quid  vult  valde  vult.  What  they 

/do  they  do  with  a  will.  You  cannot  account  for 
their  success  by  their  Christianity,  commerce,  char 
ter,  common  law,  Parliament,  or  letters,  but  by 

;  the  contumacious  sharptongued  energy  of  English 
naturel,  with  a  poise  impossible  to  disturb,  which 
makes  all  these  its  instruments.  They  are  slow 

,and   reticent,    and   are    like   a   dull    good    horse 


RESULT.  305 

which  lets  every  nag  pass  him,  but  with  whip  and 
spur  will  run  down  every  racer  in  the  field.  They 
are  right  in  ..their  feeling,  though  wrong  in  their 
speculation. 

The  feudal  system  survives  in  the  steep  in 
equality  of  property  and  privilege,  in  the  limited 
franchise,  in  the  social  barriers  which  confine  pa 
tronage  and  promotion  to  a  caste,  and  still  more  in 
the  submissive  ideas  pervading  these  people.  The 
fagging  of  the  schools  is  repeated  in  the  social 
classes.  An  Englishman  shows  no  mercy  to  those 
below  him  in  the  social  scale,  as  he  looks  for  none 
from  those  above  him  :  any  forbearance  from  his 
superiors  surprises  him,  and  they  suffer  in  his  good 
opinion.  But  the  feudal  system  can  be  seen  with 
less  pain  on  large  historical  grounds.  It  was 
pleaded  in  mitigation  of  the  rotten  borough,  that 
it  worked  well,  that  substantial  justice  was  done. 
Fox,  Burke,  Pitt,  Erskine,  Wilberforce,  Sheridan, 
Romilly,  or  whatever  national  man,  were  by  this 
means  sent  to  Parliament,  when  their  return  by 
large  constituencies  would  have  been  doubtful.  So 
now  we  say,  that  the  right  measures  of  England  are 
the  men  it  bred ;  that  it  has  yielded  more  able  men 
in  five  hundred  years  than  any  other  nation ;  and, 
though  we  must  not  play  Providence,  and  balance 
the  chances  of  producing  ten  great  men  against  the 
26* 


306  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

comfort  of  ten  thousand  mean  men,  yet  retrospec 
tively  we  may  strike  the  balance,  and  prefer  one 
Alfred,  one  Shakspeare,  one  Milton,  one  Sidney, 
one  Raleigh,  one  Wellington,  to  a  million  foolish 
democrats. 

The  American  system  is  more  democratic,  more 
humane ;  yet  the  American  people  do  not  yield 
better  or  more  able  men,  or  more  inventions  or 
books  or  benefits,  than  the  English.  Congress  is 
not  wiser  or  better  than  Parliament.  France  has 
abolished  its  suffocating  old  regime,  but  is  not  re 
cently  marked  by  any  more  wisdom  or  virtue. 

The  power  of  performance  has  not  been  ex 
ceeded,  —  the  creation  of  value.  The  English 
have  given  importance  to  individuals,  a  principal 
end  and  fruit  of  every  society.  Every  man  is 
allowed  and  encouraged  to  be  what  he  is,  and  is 
guarded  in  the  indulgence  of  his  whim.  "  Magna 
Charta,"  said  Rushworth,  "  is  such  a  fellow  that  he 
will  have  no  sovereign."  By  this  general  activity, 
and  by  this  sacred  ness  of  individuals,  they  have  in 
seven  hundred  years  evolved  the  principles  of  free 
dom.  It  is  the  land  of  patriots,  martyrs,  sages,  and 
bards,  and  if  the  ocean  out  of  which  it  emerged 
should  wash  it  away,  it  will  be  remembered  as  an 
island  famous  for  immortal  laws,  for  the  announce 
ments  of  original  right  which  make  the  stone 
tables  of  liberty. 


CHAPTER     XIX. 

SPEECH    AT    MANCHESTER. 

A  FEW  days  after  my  arrival  at  Manchester,  in  No 
vember,  1847,  the  Manchester  Athenaeum  gave  its 
annual  Banquet  in  the  Free-Trade  Hall.  "With  other 
guests,  I  was  invited  to  be  present,  and  to  address 
the  company.  In  looking  over  recently  a  newspa 
per-report  of  my  remarks,  I  incline  to  reprint  it, 
as  fitly  expressing  the  feeling  with  which  I  en 
tered  England,  and  which  agrees  well  enough  with 
the  more  deliberate  results  of  better  acquaintance 
recorded  in  the  foregoing  pages.  Sir  Archibald 
Alison,  the  historian,  presided,  and  opened  the 
meeting  with  a  speech.  He  was  followed  by  Mr. 
Cobden,  Lord  Brackley,  and  others,  among  whom 
was  Mr.  Cruikshank,  one  of  the  contributors  to 
"  Punch."  Mr.  Dickens's  letter  of  apology  for 
his  absence  was  read.  Mr.  Jerrold,  who  had  been 
announced,  did  not  appear.  On  being  introduced 
to  the  meeting  I  said, — 

(307) 


308  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  :  It  is  pleasant 
to  me  to  meet  this  great  and  brilliant  company, 
and  doubly  pleasant  to  see  the  faces  of  so  many 
distinguished  persons  on  this  platform.  But  I; 
have  known  all  these  persons  already.  When  I 
was  at  home,  they  were  as  near  to  me  as  they  are 
to  you.  The  arguments  of  the  League  and  its 
leader  are  known  to  all  the  friends  of  free  trade. 
The  gayeties  and  genius,  the  political,  the  social,  the 
parietal  wit  of  "  Punch  "  go  duly  every  fortnight 
to  every  boy  and  girl  in  Boston  and  New  York. 
Sir,  when  I  came  to  sea,  I  found  the  "  History  of 
Europe  "  *  on  the  ship's  cabin  table,  the  property 
of  the  captain  ;  —  a  sort  of  programme  or  play-bill 
to  tell  the  seafaring  New  Englander  what  he  shall 
find  on  his  landing  here.  And  as  for  Dombey,  sir, 
there  is  no  land  where  paper  exists  to  print  on, 
where  it  is  not  found ;  no  man  who  can  read,  that 
.does  not  read  it,  and,  if  he  cannot,  he  finds  some 
charitable  pair  of  eyes  that  can,  and  hears  it. 

But  these  things  are  not  for  me  to  say ;  these 
compliments,  though  true,  would  better  come  from 
one  who  felt  and  understood  these  merits  more.  I 
am  not  here  to  exchange  civilities  with  you,  but 
rather  to  speak  of  that  which  I  am  sure  interests 

*  By  Sir  A.  Alison. 


SPEECH    AT    MANCHESTER. 


these  gentlemen  more  than  their  own  praises  ;  of 
that  which  is  good  in  holidays  and  working-days, 
the  same  in  one  century  and  in  another  century. 
That  which  lures  a  solitary  American  in  the  woods 
with  the  wish  to  see  England,  is  the  moral  pecu-f 
liarity  of  the  Saxon  race,  —  its  commanding  sense! 
of  right  and  wrong,  —  the  love  and  devotion  to 
that,  —  this  is  the  imperial  trait,  which  arms  them 
with  the  sceptre  of  the  globe.  It  is  this  which 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  that  aristocratic  character, 
which  certainly  wanders  into  strange  vagaries,  so 
that  its  origin  is  often  lost  sight  of,  but  which,  if 
it  should  lose  this,  would  find  itself  paralyzed  ; 
and  in  trade,  and  in  the  mechanic's  shop,  gives 
that  honesty  in  performance,  that  thoroughness  and 
solidity  of  work,  which  is  a  national  characteristic. 
This  conscience  is  one  element,  and  the  other  is 
that  loyal  adhesion,  that  habit  of  friendship,  that 
homage  of  man  to  man,  running  through  alii 
classes,  —  the  electing  of  worthy  persons  to  a  cer 
tain  fraternity,  to  acts  of  kindness  and  warm  andj 
staunch  support,  from  year  to  year,  from  youth  to\ 
age,  —  which  is  alike  lovely  and  honorable  to  those 
who  render  and  those  who  receive  it  ;  —  which 
stands  in  strong  contrast  with  the  superficial  at 
tachments  of  other  races,  their  excessive  courtesy, 
and  short-lived  connection. 


310  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

You  will  think  me  very  pedantic,  gentlemen, 
but  holiday  though  it  be,  I  have  not  the  smallest  in 
terest  in  any  holiday,  except  as  it  celebrates  real  and 
not  pretended  joys ;  and  I  think  it  just,  in  this 
time  of  gloom  and  commercial  disaster,  of  afflic 
tion  and  beggary  in  these  districts,  that,  on  these 
very  accounts  I  speak  of,  you  should  not  fail  to 
keep  your  literary  anniversary.  I  seem  to  hear 
you  say,  that,  for  all  that  is  come  and  gone  yet,  we 
will  not  reduce  by  one  chaplet  or  one  oak  leaf  the 
braveries  of  our  annual  feast.  For  I  must  tell 
you,  I  was  given  to  understand  in  my  childhood, 
that  the  British  island  from  which  my  forefathers 
came,  was  no  lotus-garden,  no  paradise  of  serene 
sky  and  roses  and  music  and  merriment  all  the 
year  round,  no,  but  a  cold  foggy  mournful  coun 
try,  where  nothing  grew  well  in  the  open  air,  but 
robust  men  and  virtuous  women,  and  these  of  a 
wonderful  fibre  and  endurance;  that  their  best 
parts  were  slowly  revealed ;  their  virtues  did  not 
come  out  until  they  quarrelled :  they  did  not 
strike  twelve  the  first  time  ;  good  lovers,  good 
haters,  and  you  could  know  little  about  them  till 
you  had  seen  them  long,  and  little  good  of  them 
till  you  had  seen  them  in  action  ;  that  in  prosperity 
they  were  moody  and  dumpish,  but  in  adversity 
they  were  grand.  Is  it  not  true,  sir,  that  the  wise 


SPEECH    AT   MANCHESTER.  311 

ancients  did  not  praise  the  ship  parting  with  flying 
colors  from  the  port,  but  only  that  brave  sailer 
which  came  back  with  torn  sheets  and  battered 
sides,  stript  of  her  banners,  but  having  ridden  out 
the  storm  ?  And  so,  gentlemen,  I  feel  in  regard 
to  this  aged  England,  with  the  possessions,  honors 
and  trophies,  and  also  with  the  infirmities  of  a 
thousand  years  gathering  around  her,  irretrievably 
committed  as  she  now  is  to  many  old  customs  which 
cannot  be  suddenly  changed ;  pressed  upon  by  the 
transitions  of  trade,  and  new  and  all  incalculable 
modes,  fabrics,  arts,  machines,  and  competing  pop 
ulations,  —  I  see  her  not  dispirited,  not  weak,  but 
well  remembering  that  she  has  seen  dark  days  be 
fore  ;  —  indeed  with  a  kind  of  instinct  that  she 
sees  a  little  better  in  a  cloudy  day,  and  that  in 
storm  of  battle  and  calamity,  she  has  a  secret  vigor 
and  a  pulse  like  a  cannon.  I  see  her  in  her  old 
age,  not  decrepit,  but  young,  and  still  daring  to 
believe  in  her  power  of  endurance  and  expansion. 
Seeing  this,  I  say,  All  hail!  mother  of  nations, 
mother  of  heroes,  with  strength  still  equal  to  the 
time ;  still  wise  to  entertain  and  swift  to  execute 
the  policy  which  the  mind  and  heart  of  mankind 
requires  in  the  present  hour,  and  thus  only  hospi 
table  to  the  foreigner,  and  truly  a  home  to  the 
thoughtful  and  generous  who  are  born  in  the  soil. 


312        )  ENGLISH    TRAITS. 

So  be  it !  so  let  it  be  !  If  it  be  not  so,  if  the  cour 
age  of  England  goes  with  the  chances  of  a  com 
mercial  crisis,  I  will  go  back  to  the  capes  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  my  own  Indian  stream,  and  say  to 
my  countrymen,  the  old  race  are  all  gone,  and  the 
elasticity  and  hope  of  mankind  must  henceforth 
remain  on  the  Alleghany  ranges,  or  nowhere. 


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